What We All Long For

Perhaps more properly a subset of the above, the novel is also heavily concerned with the complex nature of what it means to be a racial other in white society, particularly as one who is “caught between two worlds.” All four friends are people of color caught between the worlds of their parents and the society in which they were born and live. Tuyen, for example, is the child of Vietnamese immigrant refugees, but as she was born in Canada, she is more thoroughly Western than her parents or even her older sisters; however, in Canadian society, because she is Asian, she is an outsider still, making her an outsider no matter where she goes. Each experience something similar in their understanding of self—like Tuyen, for example, Carla rejects the food of her father—leading them to claim that they are “borderless” (213), constantly being required to cross borders that others might not even see. 

All four characters have strained relationships with their families, in particular their fathers (with the exception of Jackie, who does not appear to be close with either of her parents). Ironically, they are closer to their parents and their upbringings than they like to admit. Oku, for example, takes his love of jazz from his father, even if his father sees no utility in music. Tuyen’s messiness reflects the living conditions of her family homes, which were filled with clutter regardless of how big the house got, and her mother’s insistence on saving everything is reflected in the way Tuyen collects things for her art installations, including “longings” (151). A careful reading of the novel would question to what extent we are capable of separating ourselves from our upbringings; they all reject their family to some extent while simultaneously embodying their family’s ways, suggesting that no matter how much we try, we cannot truly separate ourselves from them. 

Language is an important form of power throughout the book. Cam’s letters, for example, are rife with apologies for her poor English, and although it’s easy to write this off initially, in the end we discover that Binh is able to find Quy where she failed precisely because he is fluent in English and therefore has greater access to international records. Even more personally, Cam’s poor English prevents her from continuing her career as a doctor in Canada, despite having all of the requisite training, and despite being perfectly capable of treating the local Vietnamese population, as there would be no language barrier there. This is true not only of language differences, but also differences in linguistic registers—while the novel doesn’t have the usual kinds of communicative breakdowns and misunderstandings, even characters with shared cultural experiences (e.g., Oku and Jackie) find themselves at odds with one another when adopting registers that don’t quite fit them.