by Wendy Lee
That is actually based on a real case involving a man named Hiu Lui Ng, who died in a Rhode Island detention facility in 2008. Ng had lived in the United States for almost twenty years, was married to a naturalized citizen, and had two young children, but was arrested on an old deportation order. During his year in detention, he complained of excruciating back pain, but no one believed him. When he was finally allowed to be treated by a doctor, it was discovered that he had a broken back and suffered from liver cancer, which he died from soon after.
I remember thinking when I read the story that this could happen to so many people that I know. Even if you’ve lived in this country for many years as a productive citizen—you own property, pay taxes, and have a family—you have no rights. Your entire life could be taken away from you in an instant, just because of your immigrant status. You will never feel safe or that you belong. That, to me, is shocking.
This book and your first book, Happy Family (which is about an immigrant woman from China who becomes the nanny to a New York City couple with an adopted Chinese daughter), deal with the notion of what makes a family. Why is this an important theme for you?
I’m fascinated by the idea that immigrants leave their families to come, often alone, to a new country, where they have to create their own families. How does that affect the rest of their lives? What is the fallout for their children? Even if your parents were immigrants, but you were born in the States, as I was, there is still this thought that your family is not quite normal.
Then, on another level, there are those young people who choose to leave their families to strike out on their own or pursue a dream, which I think is true for a lot of people who come to New York. There’s this continual push and pull of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the wish to be independent and also interdependent, and out of that can come some amazing stories.
China features prominently in your work. How do you incorporate it into your novels and why?
I lived in China for three years after college, and it’s had an immeasurable impact on the way I see the world. For one thing, I think it’s made me appreciate just what my parents gave up to come to this country and create a fairly comfortable life for themselves here. The places where I lived were quite diverse—Xining, in the northwest; Fuzhou, in the southwest; and Beijing—so I’ve tried to convey just how many different kinds of locations, cultures, and peoples make up the country. I think the typical Western reader probably imagines China as a landscape of mountains bisected by the Great Wall, populated by millions of identical-looking people who work in factories. Whereas it’s a very complex, ever-changing country that deserves to be better understood.
What do you think the future holds for Asian American literature?
When I worked in trade publishing, I noticed that a lot of successful Asian American novels were set in the past, sort of the “Lisa See” effect. There didn’t seem to be as many that had a contemporary setting, even if part of the book was set overseas. And, of course, they were mostly by women, about women. This made me wonder if this is how a mainstream audience prefers to see Asian Americans, as an exotic people from the past as opposed to contemporaries who are undergoing the same issues as them. In the future I’d like to see more Asian American literature that deals with the issues of my (second) generation, not necessarily about immigrants but how to cope with an immigrant legacy; what happens after the American Dream has or hasn’t been achieved, or its definition has changed.
What is the most memorable piece of writing advice someone has given you? That you would give someone?
When I was getting an MFA in fiction at New York University, my advisor told me to “work hard.” I know that sounds like a simple piece of advice, but a lot of people around you won’t assume that you’re working hard if you’re a writer. You’re expected to sit down and the words will magically flow from your fingertips. But sometimes even the act of sitting down in a chair for more than an hour will be difficult. And, if you want to get published and your book to be read, the hard work doesn’t end after you finish writing the book.
My personal advice, also very common, is not to quit your day job. A lot of writers assume that their lives will change once they get published, mostly having to do with fame and money. Usually, that doesn’t happen. Also, having more time to write isn’t necessarily conducive to the quality or quantity of your writing. That said, it’s good to have a job in which you have some creative energy left over at the end of the day, and where people are sympathetic to your writing endeavors.
What is your writing process like?
I wish I were one of those people who wrote every day, but it comes in dribs and drabs for me. For many years, because I had a full-time job in publishing, I would rely on going away to writing residencies for a month or so to get huge chunks of work done. While these were wonderful experiences, they also became a crutch in that I didn’t know—and still don’t—how to maintain a regular writing regimen. Every time I start something new, there is a moment of terror when I feel like I don’t know how to enter the story. But somehow I do.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Ling is afraid that her children’s relationship is doomed to “older sibling–younger sibling rivalry or worse, indifference.” What kind of siblings are Emily and Michael? Is Emily a good older sister to her brother? How has their relationship changed over the years?
2. Describe Emily and Julian’s marriage. Do they have more issues other than the fact that Julian wants children and Emily doesn’t? In explaining their marital problems, Emily says, “We’ve never had to struggle for anything together, against anything, except our parents’ expectations . . . and that’s not enough to keep two people together.” What part does this play in the dissolution of their marriage?
3. Michael is constantly testing his relationship with David, from going on a trip without telling him to almost cheating on him. Why does Michael feel the need to push these boundaries? Will Michael and David’s relationship last?
4. How does Gao Hu remind Emily of her own father? Why did she become an immigration lawyer, and how much of it has to do with her parents? Are these good reasons to pursue a career?
5. In considering her husband, Ling reflects that she knows “how delicate his stomach was; how loud his snores at night; how his discarded socks looked like cow dung.... If knowing the most intimate details of someone’s life wasn’t really knowing that person, then what was?” Does knowing these kinds of things about someone mean that you truly know them? How is this different from understanding someone, particularly a spouse?
6. While visiting Liao’s home, Michael thinks that maybe Liao, rather than his own father, is the lucky one. Even though he spent fifteen years in a labor camp and Han immigrated to America, what does Liao have in his life that Han did not? What do people lose through the immigration process?
7. How does Liao’s story help Michael forgive his father? Do you believe the saying “holding on to your anger is like holding on to a piece of live coal that you intend to throw at someone else. In the end, you are the one who is burned”? Is there an instance in your life when you found it difficult to forgive someone?
8. David tells Emily that “what you’re so sure of when you’re eighteen can change. Or when you’re twenty-eight or thirty-eight.” Do you agree? What personal beliefs change over time and what don’t? Was there something you believed in when you were young that changed over time?
9. In a sense, Han Tang will always remain an enigmatic person to his wife and children. What kind of closure do they find on their own? How does this help them continue with their lives?
10. A reason many people immigrate to another country is to make a better life for their children. To many immigrants, this “better life” means traditional spouses, children, and job security—none of which Emily or Michael have by the end of the novel. Is this a betrayal of their parents’ sacrifices? What do the children of immigrants owe their parents?
Photo: Hiller
y Stone
WENDY LEE is the author of Happy Family, which was named one of the top-ten first novels of 2008 by Booklist and received an honorable mention from the Association of Asian American Studies. A graduate of New York University’s Creative Writing Program, she has worked as a book editor and as an English teacher in China. She lives in Queens, NY.
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Copyright © 2015 by Wendy Lee
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ISBN: 978-1-6177-3487-8
First Kensington Electronic Edition: February 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1-61773-487-8
ISBN-10: 1-61773-487-X