Finally Seen

“There’s a long trail of squealing children behind me. We make a giddy, squealing dragon as we run around the field, dodging Lao Lao.”

Lina struggles with guilt over leaving Lao Lao behind when she comes to the US, another of her many internal conflicts. Her struggle is apparent in this moment from Lina’s dream in which Lao Lao plays the “eagle” trying to catch the Bei Gao Li Village children, her “chicks.” Lao Lao’s inability to catch Lina in the dream shows that Lina believes she ran away from her grandmother though Lao Lao wanted her to stay. Lina’s gift for metaphorical thinking is apparent in the direct comparison between the dragon and the children.

“It means your blood is made of iron will and determination. Your backbone is built from the sacrifices and impossible decisions of all those who walked before you. You have a duty to them to protect your heart.”

Before the visit to the ice cream shop, Mom’s comments show her worry over expenses and rent and her anxiety over filling bath bomb orders. After Lina’s debacle while choosing ice cream flavors, however, Mom shows a much tougher side. Her figurative language in this lesson to Lina connotes power and tenacity while boosting her daughter’s self-respect. Mom’s quiet, solid core of strength will emerge in future scenes in which individual or family pride is on the line.

“Check into the Imagination Hotel? Only on special nights. […] She used to be an Imagineer in China, you know.”

With the metaphorical phrase “Imagination Hotel,” Millie alludes to Mom’s version of “let’s pretend”: asking Lina and Millie to “dream big” and speculate about the best life possible in five years. Millie connects their mother’s penchant for imagination games to her background as an amusement park ride engineer, which offers some expository details about Mom’s backstory. This line also helps to develop the theme of Using Imagination to Bolster Positivity and Progress.

“Maybe here, away from the stress of having to memorize a hundred Chinese poems, I’ll finally be able to stretch my arms as an artist and draw my dreams to reality.”

Lina’s joy seeing the art center at her new school represents the many hopes she has for a new life in the US. Ironically, stress of a different kind soon will consume her in the classroom: cruelty from peers and feeling inferior to them in language skills. Her reference to the “hundred Chinese poems” is hyperbolic language in which an exaggerated number of memorization tasks represents the many rote assignments she had in China that limited her creativity.

“Give yourself time […] You’ve just been transplanted. You’ll find your root system again.”

Lina’s new friend Carla at Pete Burton’s farm offers this metaphor to soothe Lina’s feelings about her big, consequential move to the US. Comparing Lina to a delicate seedling, Carla indicates that Lina has strong roots and will be capable of remarkable things once she gets more used to her new surroundings. Her words indirectly connect to the novel’s motif of nurturing soil.

“For the rest of science class, I put my head down on the table. As Mrs. Carter praises Finn on his impressive bilingual skills, I think of all the things I want to say, if I could actually speak for myself.”

Days after starting school in the US, Lina still feels silenced because of peer bullying and others’ inability to treat her developing language skills with kindness. Situational irony exists in Mrs. Carter’s praise of Finn’s Chinese translation; Lina knows he is mostly familiar with the names of food, but Mrs. Carter does not. Lina’s desire to speak for herself in class without Finn’s “help” develops the theme of Finding the Courage to Raise One’s Voice.

“We paint any message on our bomb! Message can be, I love you. You beautiful. Congratulations! Or if an enemy, can be: you rotten squid egg. Your eyeball is hairy. Anything. You think, I draw.”

Lina takes her time in crafting an Etsy message to advertise the new bath bombs, demonstrating her care for learning English. She also shows courage in sharing the note with Millie, who edits the words but maintains Lina’s creative expressions and credits her with the writing of the message. The insults reveal Lina’s sense of humor and a strong handle on figurative language and imagery. That Millie gives her the writing credit offers Lina a spark of hope about their relationship as sisters and connects to the theme of The Benefits of a Strong Support System.

“The reading slide is very real, that’s for sure.”

Mrs. Ortiz, the school’s ELL teacher, uses educational jargon in this line with Mrs. Hollins. The term “reading slide” refers to students’ reading skills gained, then lost over time. Connectedly, teachers use the term “summer slide” to refer to progress and skills lost over the summer when students take a break from learning. In the reading slide that Mrs. Ortiz and Mrs. Hollins discuss, the COVID-19 pandemic hindered learner progress; many students were expected to learn virtually but found it difficult to stay on task and complete work in the online format.

“Mrs. Carter! Lina drew something that’s fire!”

Finn uses an idiomatic expression to describe Lina’s self-portrait; ironically, Lina is not certain what he means by fire. The expression is also paradoxical when the expression means “cool.” The line is also significant in that Finn blurts it out without caring or thinking through what peers (who have already teased about his affection for Lina) might think of his endorsement, which demonstrates that peer pressure does not influence him. Finn consistently fills the role of a supportive ally character archetype who helps to develop the theme of The Benefits of a Strong Support System.

“Thankfully, I manage to get most of the ketchup off my shirt, but now there’s a huge wet stain the shape of the Forbidden City in the center of my stomach.”

Lina’s allusion in this line is a historical and geographical reference to the imperial palace in Beijing, China, a collection of buildings, plazas, and gardens. Construction started in 1406. Since only the emperor, his family and court, and government authorities were permitted inside, it was called the Forbidden City. Today, though, the area is open to tourists. The reference demonstrates Lina’s outside-the-box thinking and sense of humor.

“The roots feed the worms. The worms feed the soil. The soil feeds us. Without the soil, we’re goners! We only have five generations of usable topsoil left in the world—once that’s gone, the world becomes a dust bowl.”

Pete’s tone is pessimistic as he lectures Mrs. Muñoz on saving the soil. His allusion to the dusty conditions of the world in five generations’ time refers to the American Dust Bowl, a climate event in the 1930s when much of the nation’s Midwest suffered catastrophic loss of crops due to a combination of drought after years of harmful over-farming techniques. Pete’s dire predictions demonstrate his passion for environmental concerns while his tone demonstrates callousness. His words are evidence of the motif of soil as an important nurturer.

“Don’t let her live in your head rent-free.”

Finn’s comment to Lina about Jessica’s influence makes Lina laugh out loud, showing that both Finn and Lina can communicate and comprehend complex metaphorical thinking. The reference to paying rent connects to one of Lina’s current anxieties and conflicts, as her parents cannot pay the large back rent amount they owe, accrued during the pandemic.

“I imagine bursting into my classroom tomorrow, talking effortlessly like I did today with Finn! But then I picture my classmates; laughing faces, pointing at me and mocking my bizarro grammar, and it’s so hard to evict my own fear, no matter how much back rent it owes.”

Lina constructs a metaphor regarding the paranoia she has about speaking in class, demonstrating her anxieties about her family’s owed back rent. Lina’s fear of mistakes and miscommunications defeats her imagined vision of speaking fluently and boldly in class in this instance, one more battle in her ongoing internal fight to be heard. These lines contribute to both the theme of Finding the Courage to Raise One’s Voice and Using Imagination to Bolster Positivity and Progress.

“She’s probably so bored in her nursing home, she’s been binging Friends and now she thinks I’m dating a paleontologist with a pet monkey.”

Basing her opinion on longstanding cultural tradition, Lao Lao tells Lina that being friends with Finn is “improper”; Lina chalks Lao Lao’s comments up to watching episode after episode of the American sitcom Friends, in which three women and three men formed a close friend group in New York City during the 1990s and 2000s. Her allusion refers to Ross Geller, one of the six main characters on the sitcom who had a doctoral degree in paleontology, and, for a time, owned a pet monkey named Marcel. Lina’s allusion shows that she is versed in this tidbit of American culture.

“Whoa. Now I understand why Jessica is wound up tighter than an erhu. Her mom is beyond.”

After spying on Jessica and her mother in the public library, Lina crafts this metaphor in interior monologue to describe Jessica’s uptight, fussy quality. An erhu is a Chinese musical instrument in the string family; it has two strings and is played with a bow. Tightening the strings tunes the instrument. Lina means here that Jessica’s mother’s pressure figuratively “winds” Jessica very tightly. Lina’s use of “beyond” demonstrates the use of an idiomatic expression meaning “over the top” or “beyond what is reasonable behavior.”

“I am over them. […] But I have to be practical, Mom. Their TikTok account has eight thousand followers. Mine has fifteen.”

Millie’s comment is amusing in its irony. Still enamored with Hazel and the Starbursts at this point in the novel, she suggests that a goal of 8,000 followers on a social media platform is somehow a more realistic, “practical” situation than finding friends who value her as a person. It is also ironic that Millie states she is “over” Hazel and company but still finds their accomplishment so noteworthy. The line highlights that Millie attributes significant importance to popularity and the impact of social media; this sentiment will change in the coming chapters, showing Millie’s growth.

“I’d tell her everything. No invisible thread on the island.”

Referencing the metaphorical idea of the invisible thread, Lina means the feeling that, in China, she often had to be careful in revealing her words, opinions, and even her creativity. She often felt as though an “invisible thread” kept her freely expressed ideas from leaking out. Lina refers to the “dessert” island in Mrs. Ortiz’s imagination game; the island, Mom’s imagination game about the future, and Lina’s invisible thread all contribute to the theme of Using Imagination to Bolster Positivity and Progress.

“Clearly, they were madly in love. Virginia’s fondness for Pete was as bright and lush as the zinnias outside. So what happened?”

Lina uses a simile to describe Pete’s ex-wife’s original love for him, gleaned from Virginia Burton’s dedications in her published works. Her rhetorical question poses a mystery and serves as an indirect characterization regarding Lina’s curiosity and romantic sensibilities. The mystery surrounding Virginia and Pete’s history helps to humanize Pete and keeps his character from becoming a stereotypical, archetypal shadow or “the bad guy.”

“As we head back to the car, I wrap my arms around my sister, never more proud of her. As far as surprises in glittering bath bombs go, Millie’s choice warms my heart.”

Millie demonstrates she is a round, dynamic character when she purposefully rejects Hazel’s offer to stay at a spa weekend with the Starbursts. Though she fixated on fitting in and joining that group early in the novel, she sees now that Carla and Lina’s sincerity offers a much more genuine circle of friends. Lina uses a metaphor that connotes both a shining object and a soothing, warm bath to convey how deeply her sister impresses her with her choice.

 “‘Tomorrow?’ I think about Jessica and immediately shrivel up into an eraser. ‘I’m not ready!’”

While she gains some confidence regarding her language skills from Mrs. Ortiz, Lina’s optimism changes to fear when the teacher says it is time to return to the classroom for English and reading time. This quick flip and juxtaposition result from Lina’s fear of making mistakes. Her metaphorical shriveling connotes hiding and keeping small in front of others, poised to remedy errors by making them invisible.

“As Mrs. Collins hands me her own personal copy of Flea Shop, I realize she’s doing this for me. To protect my right to see myself in books.

A girl whose life is ‘not relatable.’

Whose very presence is ‘divisive.’

But yet a girl who has every right to read, same as everyone else, and to speak without an invisible thread stitched across half her lips.”

External conflict increases and internal conflicts come to a head with the book challenge. Overhearing Jessica’s mother’s complaints about Flea Shop demonstrates to Lina how some refuse to acknowledge the very obstacles that challenge her in the US. Lina notes instances of racism in previous chapters and feels cowed by Jessica’s comments on the bathroom wall. With the removal of her favorite book, Lina’s internal emotional turmoil regarding belonging builds to an emotional tipping point, and she realizes she must speak up—in the very language that has kept her quiet since the first day of class. Her introspection in interior monologue contributes to the theme of Finding the Courage to Raise One’s Voice. She returns to the idea of speaking freely versus hiding one’s ideas with the extended metaphor of the invisible thread.

“So I ask all of you in this room, do you want your children to have as many varied and powerful tools in their future toolbox as they can…or to just give them one wrench?”

Mrs. Carter uses an effective metaphor for interpersonal skills at the emergency school board meeting to discuss the book challenge. She speaks right after Jessica’s mother, making comments that juxtapose with Mrs. Scott‘s thoughts that children’s views on topics like immigration should come from one and only one source—their parents.

“This is why I need this book. Because my life more like Flea Shop than Simpsons. For me, this book is mirror. For other kids, it is sliding door […] A door to see real life.”

Lina not only communicates clearly in front of the school board and the gathered crowd at the emergency meeting, but she also finds ways to communicate her message effectively and through references with which they will connect. First, she sums up how necessary voices of various cultures are in stories by juxtaposing the book being challenged with an American animated satirical series, The Simpsons. Then, she references the message the school heralds about the power of books. Lina demonstrates in her dialogue and interior monologue throughout the novel that she thinks and communicates metaphorically, so the use of the school library’s message in her speech to the board is realistic, apt, and effective.