The first half of Lisa Ko’s novel The Leavers centers around Deming and the disappearance of his mother, Polly. After his mother left, Deming was adopted by a white family and raised in a primarily white town in New York. Having lived in China with his grandfather between the ages of one and six, being the only Chinese boy in a predominately white school and town greatly affected his ability to form an identity. Deming, whose name was changed to Daniel, struggled to find a place of belonging. He was abandoned by his mother, Leon, and even Vivian; whether that was by choice or obligation. Deming was abruptly placed in a new environment, and a decade later, we discover the many obstacles he had to face. For instance, his addiction, his isolation from his Chinese culture, his adoptive parent’s rejection towards his desire to pursue music, his struggles in school, and his overall failure to establish a multicultural identity.
Deming is an example of an individual who was made to feel more American than Chinese which ultimately caused him to separate his Chinese culture from his American one instead of consolidating the two. This wasn’t because he was ashamed, but rather because he couldn’t assimilate to the new environment in the way he was expected to. He didn’t have the necessary support or understanding he needed. For example, Peter suggested that non-Americans that wanted to feel represented and important meant feeling “coddled” and “entitled” (Ko 40). Through enveloping him in a new culture his parents, peers, and his other social interactions made him feel like he didn’t belong; that his Chinese culture lacked importance in comparison to his American culture.
This is prevalent among many immigrants today, where the struggle to form a multicultural identity is due to unrealistic expectations for assimilation. As described in the article Do We Really Want Immigrants to Assimilate? there are three defined factors of assimilation. Adopting English as the national language, living to be self-reliant and hardworking, and taking pride and believing in the American identity/principles (Skerry). By learning and speaking English fluently and through his adoptive father berating him for not speaking English Deming lost much of his ability to speak the Fuzhou dialect. In his attempt to be hardworking and independent Deming took up gambling and dropped out of college. And finally, as seen by both Deming and Polly, “An immigrant has already left family, community, and state, moving and attempting to adapt to a new community and state (Simms). By forcing them to adapt to something new in an already emotionally and physically homeless state they had to break down their own culture to accommodate the new one. “Assimilating would require giving up the defining aspect of their cultural and individual identities” (Simms).
Works Cited:
Ko, Lisa. The Leavers a Novel. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2018.
Simms, Luma, et al. “Identity and Assimilation.” National Affairs, www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/identity-and-assimilation.
Skerry, Peter. “Do We Really Want Immigrants to Assimilate?” Brookings, Brookings, 28 July 2016, www.brookings.edu/articles/do-we-really-want-immigrants-to-assimilate/.
Your background presentation is very detailed in the first half of The Leavers. We can see that many Asian Americans will encounter identity recognition problems when integrating into the United States. They have to give up their original culture emotionally, and it is difficult to really integrate into an American identity. This is Deming’s dilemma. You have explained this part very well. I like your background presentation very much.
You did a great summarizing The Leavers, and it is detailed and organized. I like how you point out the identity crisis of many immigrants. I remember I learned about the issue of third culture kids in high school, and because it’s an IB school, many of my friends are third culture kids. They are Taiwanese but grew up in foreign countries, England, Korea, Slovakia, Japan, the U.S…etc. I think having multicultural identity is very cool but also challenging. They can experience different cultures, but they sometimes cannot find where they belong to. For example, some may feel that they are Taiwanese, but normal people will feel like they are Americans. However, Americans will think they look like Asian, and they are not part of the American culture.