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You don’t realized how privileged you are in life until you are exposed to a world that is so much harder. Then you are horrified when you realize that this can be found in America. And inspired when one succeeds within the tough conditions they have.
In her book Girl in Translation, Jean Kwok exposed the trails of life of “mother and cub” immigrants from Hong Kong attempting to become successful in America. Kwok offers a peek into this different world through the eyes of Kimberly Chang, a bright, spunky and determined young lady.
Kimberly leads a double life. She is a naturally intelligent student working hard through her school years during the day. Facing normal school age challenges of fitting in with the other students and challenges of immigrants like learning the English language and American culture. But after school, she takes on a totally different world. It’s a world of adults working in harsh, hot, and stressful condition for meager wages and no seemingly possible way to get out of their current job situation. And she returns home each night to a freezing cold, roach and rat infested condemned building.
While the challenges she faces and the conditions of her living arrangements are very depressing, Kwok writes in such a way that gives the book a tone of overcoming adversity through honor, hard work and hope. Demonstrating her gift of writing, Kwok also includes many lighthearted and humorous situations and dialogues; my favorite being Kimberly trying to get a bully to leave her alone by openly suggesting that he was interested in her and then accidentally kissing him on the lips. I also thought the Chinese idioms as well as the phonetic spellings of words Kimberly thinks she hears laced throughout the dialogues added humor, a touch of lightheartedness and clues into Kimberly’s life.
I was immediately pulled into the storyline due to Kwok’s vivid details and intriguing storyline. I quickly found myself rooting for Kimberly -- rooting for her to defeat the bullies, to pass the life-changing exams, to finally tell off her aunt, to have better living conditions and yes, for her to capture her beloved’s heart.
I am not wanting to spoil any of the fun twists… but I did want to share how disappointed I was in some of the decisions Kimberly makes during her high school years (don’t we all have some of those, too!!). After really wanting her to succeed and pull her family from the sweatshop life throughout the whole book, the final challenge at the ending was heartbreaking for me. I didn’t like the initial choice I thought she made.
The book’s main body ends with Kimberly sharing a major challenge that has come up in her life with her mother. Her sweet and supportive mother answer was powerful! "You may need to change your dreams… I’m so proud of you…" The strong bond between mother and daughter was inspiring throughout the book, but was especially strong at this moment.
Even with the calls of my family to get back to “mothering” I dove into the Epilogue to see how life for Kimberly ended up. While, it still wasn’t the ending I longed for, I was very pleasantly surprised. And thankful that in many ways she did succeed, if not only by pleasing her mother and enjoying much better living conditions.
Being someone who enjoys a good coming of age story, Chinese culture and inspiring characters, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of Kwok’s work.
