The Leavers, a story written by Lisa Ko, follows the life of Deming Guo through several flash forwards and flashbacks. The character that I’d like to focus on primarily; however, is his mother, Polly. Polly grew up on the bottom rungs of society in China, living in the rural town of Minjiang. Around the time when she moves from her small rural town to a much bigger city in hopes of a new life, she births her first child.

For the first part of Polly’s background she lives a relatively normal and insignificant life, but after becoming pregnant for a second time (this time with Deming) she encounters her first major problem. For many years in China, a widespread law was enacted to limit each family to only one child. This presented a major issue to Polly, who found out that she had been pregnant for too long to get an abortion.

This is a problem that has been encountered by millions of women within China who are left with no choices for how to handle their baby. The One-Child policy was introduced in 1979 within China in order to severely limit the growth of population within their borders. While there were a few exceptions to this policy, the fact of the matter is that many women and families were left with no choices except to either accept the enormous fines distributed by the government or move to another country like how Polly did.

Polly is a case study of just one example of a systemic problem that affected tens of millions of families across China for decades. Thankfully, this ban was lifted in 2015 in order “to improve the balanced development of population,” in reference to the gross imbalance in ratio of males to females within China’s borders. Along with the massive imbalance in gender within China during this period, there are also many obvious injustices shown by a severe lack of choice within a family along with extreme limitations on women’s reproductive rights that should not be tolerated. While this ban has now been lifted, we must work to make sure that such an injustice is not allowed to be enacted on such a large scale ever again.

Works Cited

Akbar, Arifa. “The Leavers by Lisa Ko Review – Quietly Sensational Story of Migrants’ Plight.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 22 Apr. 2018, www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/22/leavers-lisa-ko-review-migrants-debut-chinese-american.

“The One-Child Policy Legacy on Women and Relationships in China.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/the-one-child-policy-legacy-on-women-and-relationships-in-china/.

Author of The Leavers, Lisa Ko, grew up in a suburb right outside of New York City. She was raised by her parents who immigrated to America from the Philippines. The novel The Leavers outlined the struggle of a young, Asian-American boy whose mother suddenly disappears. Later it is made know that she was captured by immigration authorities. There are many different factors that involve immigration and deportation that are outlined in this story but are not directed stated.

This novel aligns with deportation rules that were in America before 2014. When parents were separated from their children, they often end up in the foster care system or they were cared for by other family members. It is known that 1 in 5 children who are being raised by extended family members live in an immigration household (Wiltz 1). In 2014, Obama issued the DAPA and DACA Programs which delays deportation of immigrants whose children were born in the U.S in hopes to put off separation of families (1).

Since 2000, Asian immigration has increased steadily as Hispanic immigration has decreased. As of 2008, Asian-Americans represented the largest percent of immigrants in the U.S (Malik 1). The most used migration pathway for an Asian-American is through family-sponsored visas (Malik 1). Due to the demand for visas, Asian immigrants have to wait a the longest time for visa compared to other immigrant groups due to backlog. Other Avenues include work permits or student visas. Family-sponsored visas (like that sponsored by a sibling) take a much shorter time compared to a regular visa. For example, it can take 25 years for a green card, but only 14 for a family-sponsored visa. It is estimated that 4.2 million individuals are waiting for a family visa due to backlog (Malik 1).

Despite the considerably amount of time it may take an Asian immigrant to get to American, their impact on the U.S economy has been very positive. Its estimated that Asian-American’s own 1.5 million American businesses and hold the fasted growing buying power share (Malik 1). Even though they represent the largest percent of immigrants in the U.S and their impact on America has been very positive, Asian-American immigrants face many different challenges. They do not receive the due amount of respect from political parties due to language barriers and also are at risk for the model minority stereotype. This stereotype assumes that Asian-American immigrants have already achieved the “American Dream” therefore those that face normal challenges like unemployment or poverty get ignored by an unaccepting America. It is important that America recognizes the needs of all immigrant groups, and acknowledges the cracks that are present in the foundation of our immigration policies.

Works Cited

• “Deferred Action for Parents (DAPA).” National Immigration Law Center, 17 June 2016, www.nilc.org/issues/immigration-reform-and-executive-actions/dapasummary/.

Malik, Sanam. “Asian Immigrants in the United States Today.” Center for American Progress, 5 Feb. 2016, www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2015/05/21/113690/asian-immigrants-in-the-unites-states-today/.

Wiltz, Teresa. “If Parents Get Deported, Who Gets Their Children?” If Parents Get Deported Who Gets Their Children | The Pew Charitable Trusts, www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/10/25/if-parents-get-deported-who-gets-their-children.

The Chinese American author who wrote The Leavers, Lisa Ko, was born in Queens, New York and grew up in the state of New Jersey (Memolo 1). Ko’s family moved to the United States from the Philippines, which made her the first of her family to be born in America (Ko 25). When growing up, Ko faced several challenges due to the fact that she was one of the only children in her neighborhood who were Asian. Through these struggles, she felt she had to “adjust to life as a person of color” (Memolo 1). As the author grew up and was introduced to Asian American writing, she came to the realization that there was a lack of representation of immigrants in literature (Memolo 1). She also realized that there was a lack of stories that expressed the type of experiences she had when growing up as the only minority in her neighborhood.

As Ko started to question the representation of immigrants and people like her in stories, it helped spark the idea behind her book. It wasn’t until she read an article in the New York Times when she truly became inspired to write this novel.

The Leavers was inspired by the article “Mentally Ill and Immigration Limbo” that was written in the New York Times. According to the article, a woman named Xiu Ping Jiang came to the United States illegally from China. Before she came to America in 1997, she was living in hiding because she was pregnant with her second child. This was an issue because the policy of China was that women were only allowed to have one (Bernstein 1). If she was found to be pregnant with a second child, she would have been forced to have an abortion. Not long after she gave birth to her baby, the government found her and fined her for having two. She later fled to the United States, where she believed would provide her and her family with better opportunities. She paid $35,000 to be illegally transported to the United States by boat and traveled by sea for several months to start a new life (Bernstein 1). Her plan was to first settle down and then bring her two children over to the United States. Along with her struggles and separation from her children, Jiang became mentally ill, which cost her several jobs. When she was on her way to a new job at a Chinese restaurant, she was founded by ICE and was arrested. Jiang was presented in court “with no criminal record, no lawyer, and a history of attempted suicide” (Bernstein 1). She was issued a deportation and was sent to jail, where she was held there for more than a year. Jiang was in detainment for a long time and struggled with her history of being suicidal and mentally ill.

Xiu Ping Jiang’s story was accidentally found because she had the same name as an ex-wife of a mass killer. Jiang is just one example of many who are waiting for their story to be heard, which is what really sparked Ko’s inspiration for writing The Leavers.

Works Cited

Bernstein, Nina. “Mentally Ill and in Immigration Limbo”. The New York Times. 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/nyregion/04immigrant.html

Ko, Lisa. “A Better Life- an Essay”. The Algonquin Reader. Vol. 6, no. 1, 2016, pp. 25-27. http://lisa-ko.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Ko-essay-THE-LEAVERS.pdf

Memolo, Erika. “Lisa Ko”. Moving Fictions: Exploring Migration in Modern Literature. 2019. https://sites.udel.edu/movingfictions/theleavers/about-the-author/