Words and Meaning
The subject at hand in this unusual book is on a surface level the experience of being an Asian-America immigrant. But what is an immigrant? Or Asian? Or American? The thematic foundation unifying all elements of the text is the author’s examination and analysis of the complicate relationship between the surface appearance of things and their meaning. One particularly vivid example of imagery presents in miniature the process of arriving at meaning through what are, in the end, simply a series of sounds lacking any inherent or organic meaning and requiring signification and agreement upon the meaning of that signification:
“Not finding red. Abyss. Abysmal. A baby. A bahay. A bahay kubo. In Cebuano, this means `house-cube.” It is a house-on-stilts. My friend’s uncle won’t leave the bamboo house-on-stilts.
Surface Identity
In addition to exploring how words gain meaning, the book also explores the meaning of identity, especially as it relates to surface appearance. Born in the Philippines, the author is endowed with certain physical characteristics commonly referred to as “Asian.” But is being Asian about what you look like? Does that mean a person born and raised in Asia, steeped in the traditions of a specific country, but bearing none of those physical signifiers is not actually Asian? Most people do not confront this concept head-on until they move away from the foundational stereotypes and into a more alien environment. This complex assessment is given voice in a simple example of imagery:
“In the Philippines, the first thing I notice is everyone looks like me.”
Perception
The thematic pursuit of perceptual dissonance is explored through sensory imagery that makes effective use of the subtle ways in which light and color can disorient one’s understanding of surface appearances. Throughout the text, the author pushes the reader to question the nature and validity of assumptions based on physical properties immediately available for analysis. The message is always that one must not trust initial impressions and take the time to explore deeper:
“The degree of blackness is completely relative. I look at my notes sitting on my desk. Someone has taken a yellow highlighter to it. No, it is the sunlight through the blinds. Or am I hallucinating light?”
Visual Imagery
Lying deep at the bottom of the writer’s obsession with identification, signifying and meaning is her own true, personal story of having been given up for adoption by her biological mother. Mother imagery abounds and equally bountiful are verbal descriptions of vague female figures whom one can feel free to interpret as being symbolic personifications of the lost mother. But the most relentlessly intense imagery associated with this aspect of the book is an photocopy of the official Republican of Philippines Affidavit of Waiver signed by the author’s mother legally transferring care and custody of her daughter to the state in accordance with the government’s Child Welfare Code. What makes this imagery so arresting is not the sad implications inherent in the actual authentic paperwork, but rather the hole that has been burned right in the middle of it while on the opposite page the author writes about the very of creating the hole:
“It takes awhile to catch, but then the flames quickly burn through the paper. The imprint of my birth mother’s dirt and flesh peels away.”
