The Leavers by Lisa Ko is a book, which takes the reader through the cultural experience of a boy named Deming Guo and his mother, Polly Guo’s, sudden dissappearance, who both emigrated from China. One of the major themes in this book is migration and cultural identity. The beginning of the book starts out with Deming struggling in school, while his mother is still present. During this time, Deming is not quite content with his cultural identity after migrating from China. Although living in Chinatown with family friends, they are the only household to Deming’s knowledge which speaks Fuzhounese. “Individuals who migrate experience multiple stresses that can impact their mental well being, including the loss of cultural norms, religious customs, and social support systems, adjustment to a new culture and changes in identity and concept of self.” (Bhugra, D., & Becker, M. A., 2005) The research on migration directly supports Deming’s experience as he is losing his cultural norms by the dillusion of his language and goes further in the next section of the book. Deming goes on to his mother disappearing on a whim shortyly after, where he further loses part of his social support systems.
The book skips forward to a decade later, where Deming has now been integrated in to an American family, who is actively trying and have been trying to make him the poster child for American culture, thus forcing him to adjust to a new culture threatening his sense of identity. Demings name was changed to Daniel by this family. Daniel has moved away from his new family and is trying to start a band, but is clearly struggling with mental health as his new parents visit and are trying to assure he is not falling back into addiction. His new parents Kay and Peter are urging him to go back to college after dropping out, leaving Daniel stuck in an identity crisis between his current support system and his new parents, whose approval he desperately seeks. He is also presented with the possibility of new information about his mother’s whereabouts which had not before been revealed.
The book skips back to the time period when Deming’s mother has disappeared. Deming is left constantly wondering and worrying when she’ll come back. Deming is eventually put in foster care and moved in with the previous American family, Kay and Peter, who are a suburban family. Deming’s new family switches his name to Daniel Wilkinson. Daniel is required to speak english and go to a school where he is one of very few people not from America, but eventually finds a friend Roland, who has been put in a quite similar situation. This new friend helps Daniel keep some sense of identity in his time of moving again. Later on, Kay and Peter take him back to the Bronx, where a new friend helps him go see his old appartment, but finds a new family living there, both helping and hurting Daniel, making him feel like he is losing his past.
The book jumps back forward a decade and returns to the point shortly after his talk with Peter and Kay about going back to college. Daniel decides to reach out the E-Mail about knowing his mother’s whereabouts. Daniel finds out his mother had significant financial debt to loan sharks for moving them to America and thus is left with no choice than to forfeit daniel to the foster care system. Daniel is infuriated when he eventually meets up with Vivian, the mother of the family they lived with at the beginning, but eventually comes to terms with the fact that his mother had no choice.
Overall, Deming endured many of the aformentioned challenges with migration when integrating into American society. He was forced to lose his cultural norms both when moving to America and also when being integrated into an American family. He lost and gained social support systems many times throughout the many moves he endured. He struggled with his identity, as he was very different from the people around him after his moves. I believe this is why he faced the addiction to gambling, sparked by his mental health issues, related to migration and cultural identity.
Citations:
Ko, L. (2017). The leavers (pp. 1–150). Algonquin Books Of Chapel Hill.
Bhugra, D., & Becker, M. A. (2005). Migration, cultural bereavement and cultural identity. World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 4(1), 18–24.
Hi! This was a great context presentation. At the beginning, I really enjoyed how you specifically identified the major themes of the book: migration and cultural identity. Though I had understood the chapters before reading this presentation, you specifically laying out the themes was a great recap and allowed me to focus on the text in a different way. In general, I feel as though you summarized the book in chronological order perfectly, and included specific details necessary for comprehension. Great job!
Hey! I think you did a great job explaining the story even with all the back and forth the book has. Overall the point of view you focused on was very well thought out, the struggles that Deming faces in the novel are very much rooted in his inability to feel at home. Losing his mother definitely didn’t help with those struggles and you did a really good job explaining that!
Hello! Great job on your presentation this week, and you were able to make the story comprehensible even though there is a lot of transitioning in time, which was nice! I also like how you mentioned that when Daniel finds out his old apartment is being lived in by another family and makes him feel like he is losing his past, which was something I did not notice at first, I only saw disappointment, but now I see how it really throws him for a loop and how he felt like he was losing every memory he once had.
Your background presentation summarizes and summarizes the whole book in great detail, which is very helpful for me to understand the whole book. At the same time, I really like your discussion on Deming’s identity, which is very helpful for us to understand Deming’s growth and changes. Deming is experiencing the problem of identity recognition in the United States, so he has been struggling with his identity. In order to integrate into American society, he had to give up his original culture, which also led to his psychological problems. In general, your emotional description of Deming is very good. Good job!
This presentation does a great job going through the first half of this novel and emphasizing Deming/Daniel’s experiences growing up in New York. I think these changes, such as entering the Foster Care system, his mom leaving him, not meeting cultural expectations, etc. begin to really shape Deming’s perspective of himself. I feel as if this is essential to note as Deming constructed his own sense of self due to the interactions and experiences he had faced within American society. He loses touch with his origins and seeks his opinions based off of those around him. To conclude, I think this context presentation was very well written and nicely explains Deming’s interactions whilst living in New York.
Great job on the context presentation! I think you did a really good job on summarizing the book overall and giving us a more in depth look at the themes presented within. I really enjoyed how you discussed the feats in which Deming faced throughout his life and just how these obstacles ultimately impacted his cultural identity.
I like your ideas about the novel “The Leavers”. You include a detailed explanation of the timeline the author use in her work, and it introduces the main character’s cultural collisions from his original language and living style to his current living after being adopted by his American parents. This agitation makes him bounce with his identity through name, from Deming to Daniel. The immigration issue is a serious matter affecting children’s cultural norms and shapes them in the new system with new habits, and you use a clear and concise ending to summarize the issues leading to Daniel’s living issues. Overall a nice presentation!
Great post about “The Leavers”, I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the timeline you gave of the book and how you incorporated the details about individuals who migrate, deal with multiple stresses. The book does seem to go back and forth quite a bit so that can be jarring to readers but you did an excellent job navigating that.
You did a great job explaining the inner meaning of this book. You also did a great job explaining the details adding up to the certain part. I couldn’t imagine facing these issues and having to change everything from the culture I know, to the one I am put in. I didn’t think the reading was to complicated but you really made it all make even better sense. Deming had a very hard life, after his mother leaving he was set with so many responsibilities that he didn’t even know about.
Your presentation was very good! You did a good job summarizing the story. I like how you explained his life step by step. Also, it was very helpful. The details you added about his immigration process was very important to the story.
Great job with this analysis! I really enjoyed the way in which you organized this summary of the book. It was definitely a challenge to find a way to make it flow so nicely with all the jumping around there is in time. I think you also did a great job of expressing the difficulties that Deming faced and how he felt about his culture. I can only image how difficult it is to move to a different country and feel as if you need to abandon the life and culture you once had. One thing specifically that I found to be extremely important is that Deming’s name was changed. This is just one of many examples that prove how difficult this was for Deming and all the obstacles he was forced to overcome.