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/
Great post, Emily! It was interesting to learn about the inspiration for The Leavers. I did not know anything about Lisa Ko before reading this. I also did not know the book was inspired by Xiu Ping Jiang’s story, so it is interesting to learn about it and see the parallels between what happened to her and Polly in The Leavers.
As I read The Leavers, I kept wondering whether the story was a personal experience or inspired by true stories. This information helped me better understand the author’s perspective while writing the book. I think that it is interesting that Xiu Ping Jiang’s story was only found because of a coincidence. This raises the question of how many other stories like hers have not been told? Her story is important and I’m glad it’s being told, even if it is through the character of Polly.
Hi, great post! I usually do my own research prior to the reading because I feel that it is very important to understand the author’s upbringing and their inspiration behind the work. This post does just that! It gave me background on Lisa Ko, who I was unfamiliar with prior to this class, and helped me understand her way of portraying Xiu Ping Jiang’s story. I am really looking forward to this reading!
Hi there Emily. I really enjoyed reading your post about what inspired Lisa Ko to write the novel, The Leavers. It was hard for me to read your post at times as I couldn’t imagine the sort of turmoil Jiang went through. She wanted her kids to have a better life and faced many hardships in doing so and was ultimately sent back to the place she wanted to leave most. It’s important that we read these kinds of stories that are honest and raw and show the hardships and failures many immigrants face.
I enjoyed your background information and as I was reading I was tying it into the dangers of a single story and how that affected Ko and her life growing up.
I really enjoyed getting a taste of the reasoning behind why Ko went on to write this. It is always very interesting to see the connections between an author and their work and how their own expereinces influence their work. It is also nice to be exposed to different immigrant stories that are not portrayed enough. Asian immigration stories seem to be lacking in terms of representation in books and other media. I hope Ko has inspired other Asian children to document their expereinces.
This is an incredible post and one that got my mind glued on because this happens frequently now with others trying to leave for the United States and end up facing a challenge that would ruin their opportunity. It is really intriguing to learn why things are made and what is the motivation behind it through it all and the types of stories that are told from each person. Overall, this helps me understand the point of view of others in certain situations and it makes me have an open mind to the concept; as well that it ties in with other information that we have learned in the past.
Thank you for your post, Emily! I don’t know anything about the author of the book, and I don’t know this newspaper inspired her to write it. Your article made me realize that many illegal immigrants in the United States are in a very difficult situation; they are really pitiful. Ko’s book can show this social problem, using words to speak for them.
Nice post, I like that Lisa Ko took the time to go to China for an accurate feel of the setting that Ko was inspiring the story from. As she delved into Xiu Ping Jiang’s story, I found it interesting that she walked around the village that Polly came from to be as detailed as real life to make the story as realistic as possible for the readers. While reading the book I appreciated the little details that would make you feel immersed into the perspective of both main characters with a fresh story that had a foundation from a real-life case to make the fictional story have lessons that would apply from the many stories that are unheard and voice the struggles associated with immigration.
Very interesting Emily! I love the background information on the author, helping me understand the way the book is written! This has a lot of parallels to the book, and helps me further understand the inspiration behind it!