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the gangster we are all looking for

palm, water, loss

Family and home redefined by diaspora

Father’s attempt to assimilate vs daughter’s fantasies of return

Powerlessness of refugee experience (29) Glass animals vs glass

butterfly

suh-top!

{Question 1

What are the two meanings of the title of the second chapter, “palm”?

What is the narrator’s neighborhood like?

How does the setting reflect the narrator’s character?

How has the narrator’s family been changed and how is she handling it?

What is Ma’s character like? How is she handling life in the US?

Why does Ma become upset when the pool is covered over? (52-54)water & palm

What is “The Room”? (58) Palm of hands = loss of childhood innocence

(63) “I saw my father’s car sliding down the soft

wall of the canyon” Palm of the tree = loss of home & family (63)

“Where does water go when it goes away?” “My palms in the dark…” (64)

In-between childhood and adulthood

palm of the hand

What game do the neighborhood kids make up at the Church of the Jehovah’s Witnesses? (49-50)

What happens between the narrator and her friend in the tower of the Church? (70-71)

Who haunts the narrator at the end of the chapter? (74)the

tower

What is Ma and Ba’s relationship like? Why do they fall in love with each other?

Why does Ma say that “war is a bird” (87)?

Who is the “gangster we are all looking for”?

questions