29 pages • 58 minutes read
In the Land of the Free
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Symbols & Motifs
The Tree With the Red Flower
The tree with the growing red flower is one of the first symbols the reader encounters in the text. Hom Hing describes to the customs official how his wife dreamed “of a green tree with spreading branches and a single red flower growing thereon” and that he took this as a sign that she should return to China to give birth to their child (5). In this way, the tree represents Hom Hing’s family, with its spreading branches indicating that his family is in the process of growing. The single red flower symbolizes Little One, the new bud in the family tree, in the color red to symbolize life. Lae Choo’s dream about this tree signals to Hom Hing that she is pregnant and necessitates her return to China so that their son can be born in the country of his family’s roots, deepening the tree metaphor.
The reader encounters the tree again later in the story after Little One has been taken into government custody. As Lae Choo gathers her many jewels to give to James Clancy to fund his trip to Washington, Hom Hing prevents her from giving up one particular ring: “He selected a ring—his gift to Lae Choo when she dreamed of the tree with the red flower. The rest of the jewels he pushed toward the white man” (10). This ring is connected to the symbol of the tree and, therefore, to Little One and the promise of new life. Its importance prevents Hom Hing from giving it up to be sold since it is one of the only items he and his wife possess that connects them to their son. Keeping this ring symbolizes Hom Hing and Lae Choo’s continued hope of reuniting with their child.
Time
Throughout “In the Land of the Free,” the motif of time and its passage is emphasized. Hom Hing describes how Lae Choo and Little One were delayed from returning to the United States “for twenty moons” because Lae Choo had to care for their ailing family members (5). After Little One is removed from their custody, the text highlights how long it takes for them to receive updates about their son, noting that entire seasons have passed: “The winter rains were over; the spring had come to California, flushing the hills with green and causing an ever-changing pageant of flowers to wash over them” (5). References to the increasing length of their separation—first one day, then five months, then 10 months—emphasize the difficulty of overcoming institutionalized racism.
In addition to the passage of time on a grand scale, the story also foregrounds the painfully slow passage of time in the small moments that the characters experience. During the first day without Little One, Lae Choo awaits his return anxiously, busying herself the entire morning and anxiously checking “the gilded clock on the curiously carved mantelpiece” (7). At the end of the story, as she waits in the mission to finally reunite with her son, the narrator notes that this single moment “felt like an hour to the mother” (10). Time, both in small fragments and in long progressions, signifies just how long Hom Hing and Lae Choo must wait to make their family whole again. Time is also a natural force that cannot be stopped, so its consistent inclusion in this story emphasizes how their family’s fate is ultimately beyond their control.
Motherhood
The motif of motherhood and the symbol of the mother figure is central in “In the Land of the Free.” Lae Choo is the protagonist, and her identity as a mother is essential to all the choices she makes. When the customs officials first try to take her son from her, she cries out, “No, you not take him; he my son, too” (5), establishing her strong maternal instincts. She is also frequently referred to as “a mother” or “the mother,” signaling that motherhood is the key component of her identity.
Lae Choo reflects on several other mother figures in the text. She witnesses a “completion of the moon” celebration for another family’s firstborn, but “she, a bereaved mother, had it not in her heart to rejoice with other parents” (6). In the same scene, Lae Choo observes another mother and her former neighbor waving up at her window, accompanied by her young son. Instead of feeling grief, Lae Choo takes comfort in the memory of this mother and her son when he was just a baby and then uses this memory to bolster her own resolve about being reunited with Little One. Motherhood in general is, therefore, a guiding framework for the text’s main conflict; as Hom Hing remarks, “There cannot be any law which would keep a child from its mother!” (6). The reader quickly understands the irony here, however, for it is the law that keeps Lae Choo and Little One apart.
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