JOURNEYS

I am drawn to stories about immigrants. I am not sure why. I live a mere hundred miles or so from the place where I was born and raised. Still yet, journeys and themes of leaving home resonate soundly in stories told by my family. I grew up hearing about the immigration of my father's great grandparents to this country. Today, in fact, on a wall in my office hangs a print of an oil painting of the very ship on which they traveled. I look to it as a reminder of their toil, the cost of their hope for something better and to remind me when the pursuit of my own dreams seems too difficult to overcome that others before me have suffered far more.

But, I am not sure if it is necessarily this particular connection that draws me to books like the one I just finished, Forgotten Country, by Catherine Chung, who is of Korean descent and whose main character is a child of Korean immigrants. I am also a big fan of books about immigrant families to this country from India. Jhumpa Lahiri, author of The Namesake and two books of stories, Unaccustomed Earth and Interpreter of Maladies, has long been a standout for me. Lahiri's books and stories, as well as Chung's novel, are written from the perspectives of second generation immigrants, children of those who left their homes and who were born here or were very young when they arrived. Thus, they are caught in a middle, of sorts, often the only reliable guide for their parents through American culture and the English language. They are trapped irretrievably in the ways and customs of their native land, but struggle with a certain desperation to be truly American while at the same time remaining loyal to who they are. I suppose the unavoidable tension and conflict this dichotomy creates is what makes for all that good fiction.

After all, aren't we all simply trying to find our place in this world? Is that not what it comes down to in the end? Where do we fit? How do we get there? And, mostly our answers to those questions are not ever going to be clear cut or distinct. I find as I get older that there are few things in this world that are black and white. More often than not, we find ourselves in the gray area. Thus, we have compelling novels coming out of this kind of struggle, a struggle that is multiplied by a stark sense of being on the outside, when you do not speak the language or look very much like your neighbors.

And, isn't it perplexing, the fact that this country, created almost solely by people not from here, can be so terrifyingly strange and vicious to those who continue to long to live among us and with us? I am far removed from the initial infiltration of all sides of my family into this country, but it is telling that the story of my forebears' journey is still told, still held up among their descendants as vitally important to who we are. Five generations later their story remains one of seeking something better. It is the same quest for freedom and opportunity that brings anyone here.

The themes and issues related to immigration are not necessarily central in Chung's Forgotten Country, but they are unavoidable. Really, this is the story of a family, and the reader knows Chung has hit a vein of truth because they will recognize the same strains of discord and discontent that wind their way through all families. We see the worst and love the best of the people who populate our personal lives. It was the last few chapters of this novel, though, that moved me more than any writing has in a while. We know early on that the father in this story faces a near inevitable death from cancer, so I am not spoiling the book for you when I share that the last few chapters are about his slow wilting towards the end. The novel is worth reading if not for anything else other than the stumbling upon of intensely affecting passages like this:

"Here's a secret. You think there are limits, you think it can't get worse, there's just dead and that's it, but there's worse. There's your father's mouth, open, but he can't speak, and instead he makes sounds no person should make. There's the sore you discover on his back the size of your fist, and you don't know how long it's been there or how you missed it this whole time he's been lying there, arched and stiff, looking at you, everything in his face begging for help . . .
. . . The price you pay now is his mouth open, which is screaming and not screaming, the price is the gurgle in his throat, the tendons in his neck stretching and aching, and yes, yes, for the first time you wish for his death because you finally know you have been asking too much, and that neither of you can bear it."