Jasmine

Jasmine examines her identity as a foreigner trying to hide that foreignness within the vast swaths of Middle America. Bud jokingly calls her Jane, as in the old American West legend Calamity Jane. She knows that he finds her foreignness unnerving, and she knows this because she feels the same way.

When Jasmine and Du watch an INS raid on a factory that employed undocumented immigrants on TV, she thinks that there is a very fine line between where she and Du are and where so many other people like them end up. Du made it out of a refugee camp, but his brother did not.

Jasmine’s relationship with Du is fraught with awkwardness both in her position as a pseudo-stepmother and as a fellow immigrant. Du, mostly silent, sardonic, and bitter, often brushes off Jasmine’s attempts at communication.

She also expresses her deep frustration at her conversation with Du’s history teacher, Mr. Skola, who callously and carelessly calls Du a “quick study” (29). Du is a boy eager to leave behind anything and everything that he associates with being Vietnamese while at the same time internalizing his anger at having to do so. Jasmine thinks of the small shrine Du had kept in his room when he came to America, a shrine he has since taken down.