Preparation For The Next Life

“Did you know that there is a place that is better than any other?…Now, look, everyone there is full of joy. They spend their lives feasting and singing, so why wouldn’t they be? No one goes without. Everyone has what he needs…You don’t have to be rich. If somebody wants it, it will be theirs.”

Zou Lei’s father describes what he believes the United States to be. This image of luxury and fulfillment juxtaposes the reality that Zou Lei experiences when she immigrates to the United States. This fantasy represents the American Dream, and Zou Lei’s experience in the United States reveals the truth behind it.

“She was going to stay where everybody was illegal just like her and get lost in the crowd and keep her head down. Forget living like an American. It was enough to be free and on the street. She’d rather take the scams, the tuberculosis, the overcrowding.”

After her time being incarcerated, Zou Lei’s understanding of and belief in the American Dream begins to deteriorate. She lets go of the belief that wealth will come to her and holds onto the concept of freedom, which becomes extremely important to her after experiencing incarceration in the American prison system and seeing the corruption and violence there.

“Because this is the army. Because this is their country. Because this isn’t supposed to make sense.”

Skinner’s disillusionment with America and its ideals begins during his time in the army. Skinner quickly realizes that what he is being ordered to do doesn’t always make sense, and he slowly begins to understand that he is simply a weapon to be used as the American government sees fit. By showcasing this disillusionment early on in his tours of Iraq, the novel provides context for the frustration and anger Skinner feels by the end of his third tour.

“No one told him the results of his cranial scan. He had unbearable headaches and double vision. The army gave him reading glasses. There was no mention of PTSD or TBI. When he got back to the war, he was considered a discipline problem.”

After Skinner watches several of his peers and friends violently die, as well as being severely injured himself, the army expects him to act as though nothing happened. The image of Skinner receiving reading glasses instead of treatment for his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or his traumatic brain injury (TBI) highlights how little the army cares about the well-being of its soldiers.

“They went out into the quiet night and started hiking down Franklin Avenue until the small American houses gave way to the ghetto buildings and then the huge cathedral of Chinatown, over the hill through the dark trees and down the long block that extended out to the freeway like a jetty.”

This image of movement across a section of the city is also one of movement across boundaries of race and class. The physical divisions between “small American houses” and “ghetto buildings” and “the huge cathedral of Chinatown”—a monument to generations of community-building in the face of racism and housing discrimination—illustrate the divisions created by social inequality.

“If I take a risk, who is responsible? You have to be responsible. If I give you the break, you give me the break. Only fair. So the salary will be adjusted. He wrote it on the paper and circled it. This salary…Really. Do not be disappointed. I tell you something, the truth. This is a lot of money.”

Zou Lei is told that she will be paid less because she is an undocumented immigrant. This moment highlights one of the major themes in the novel, The Challenges Faced by Undocumented Immigrants in the United States as Zou Lei continuously faces discrimination in the workplace and is often exploited by her employers.

“He did not understand the process he was going through. He did not have a medical degree. It was not a healing process. The breaking down was the opposite of that. It was not catharsis. He didn’t know enough to be as scared as he should have been, or he might have gone to the VA.”

As Skinner’s mental health begins to rapidly decline, it quickly becomes apparent to readers that he does not have the resources to help himself. This sharp juxtaposition between what Skinner believes the “healing process” is like and how he really feels shows readers how little he had been prepared for The Cost of War, one of the novel’s central themes. Readers learn how little support Skinner has received from the American government regarding his mental health.

“He experienced a sense of wrongdoing. Took his finger off the trigger, extending it straight along the outside of the trigger guard, where it was supposed to be. Thumbed the safety back on. But his mind did not have a safety and there was no way to shut it off.”

Skinner’s gun symbolizes both life and death. After he considers shooting the wall, he places the safety back on the weapon so that it can’t be fired. This is a moment of restraint for Skinner that emphasizes the precarity of his self-control. Skinner can physically stop himself from committing acts of violence, but he is unable to keep his mind from thinking of them. This moment marks the beginning of Skinner’s suicidal ideation and his debilitating PTSD symptoms.

“The week after she bought the ID, the Sing Tao. El Diario, and the Pakistani Times carried the story of a worksite raid at the meatpacking plant in Greeley, North Carolina, in which ICE had detained over two hundred Hispanic workers suspected of immigration violation, separating them from their families and shipping them to detention centers in Pennsylvania and Texas.”

This moment shows the horrible reality of immigration raids and how unfair they can be. This image reinforces Zou Lei’s fear of police officers and being discovered by immigration officials.

“They fucked him up. The guards went after anyone who was Asian Muslim, Trini, black, brown, whatever—anything like Arab because they’re so stupid and fucking racist, they think everybody with dark skin is the same.”

As Zou Lei speaks with a woman about the deportation of one of her family members, she explores the systemic racism that allows for the discrimination and criminalization of any person who is not white. This systemic racism is one of the largest challenges faced by undocumented immigrants in the United States.

“Since 9/11, the smallest offense made you deportable, depending on what country you were from. According to the World Journal, there were different classifications of countries and immigrants. Zou Lei didn’t know if she would be classified with immigrants from China, a trading partner of the United States, or with those from Jamaica, Guyana, Mexico, Egypt, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.”

The events of September 11, 2001, and its aftermath are a significant source of conflict within this novel. In this quote, readers learn of the racial hierarchy that is maintained through the treatment of immigrants in the United States. Immigration from China—a major US trading partner—is much easier than from the countries listed at the end of this quote. Zou Lei’s identity—as a member of a Muslim ethnic group from a region of Afghanistan under Chinese occupation—makes her immigration status especially complicated.

“Warrior: One who is martial, a hero. Love: Two scalewings, the giving of the heart. Freedom: Up to the self. The United States is a freedom country.”

Zou Lei’s Chinese-to-English dictionary presents several abstract definitions of English words that help readers to metaphorically understand the role of these complex ideas in the novel. A “warrior” becomes a martyr; Skinner and his peers are “warriors” who lose both their lives and parts of themselves to the war. Freedom being presented as “up to the self” exposes the shakiness of the concept and how it is something intangible.

“The general conversation turned back to John Gambia and what he was doing in Iraq. It was agreed that he was doing very well.”

As Skinner stands listening to Mrs. Murphy’s friends discussing a young neighborhood boy who is in the military, he is clearly struggling with substance abuse and his mental health. This idea of civilians mutually agreeing that a soldier in Iraq is “doing very well,” juxtaposed against Skinner’s condition, shows how uninformed they are about the war and its physical and psychological impact.

“The loss of this feeling horrified him. It was yet another thing that didn’t work on him. When I was younger, I always wanted to be in love with somebody someday. The thought that that was over, that I couldn’t feel that anymore, this really hit me hard. It took my hope away.”

As Skinner’s mental health declines, he begins to lose the things that he once held onto as a source of hope. This sudden shift to the first-person point of view highlights how significant this loss is for Skinner, and the sudden shift is as jarring to the reader as the loss of his ability to feel love for Zou Lei is for him.

“Brad’s-eye-view of the world was just the slick green of the poncholiner, one of his hands—the other felt trapped under him—the yellow spill of lamplight, the table with his skyline of pill bottles. In the shine of the flossy cover, he could make out the trace of a beautiful woman’s leg and a spike heel.”

The imagery in this quote emphasizes how Skinner’s entire identity has become centered on the war. The image of his vision being limited by his poncho liner represents his worldview being funneled through his experiences fighting in the Iraq War. The “skyline” of medication that he must take because of the psychological impacts of war emphasizes how all-encompassing his psychological trauma has become.

“The obvious solution was for Zou Lei and Skinner to work together, she said. They could combine forces and help each other with their respective problems…The bright side, she said, was that she had met him and they could form an army of their own, a two-person unit, to fight these different battles involving his mental recovery and her immigration status.”

The image of Skinner and Zou Lei’s respective struggles as “battles” highlights their severity. Zou Lei’s use of a war metaphor shows that the only way she can properly get through to Skinner is to talk about war, which has become all-encompassing for him.

“If they do that shit, Skinner muttered, I’ll burn the fucking flag of this fucking country and wipe my ass with the ashes.”

The sharp language and imagery in this quote show the extent to which Skinner has become disillusioned with the United States and its ideals. The severity of this statement is further emphasized by the fact that Skinner almost lost his life fighting for those same ideals.

“If his body feels better, his mind will feel better. For his glorious service, I’ll give you ten percent off.”

The stigma of mental illness and how uninformed people are about PTSD are explored through the ideas presented in this quote. While the “pharmacist” states that if Skinner feels better physically, he will feel better mentally, the reality of the situation is much more complex. This moment becomes satirical as the pharmacist offers Skinner “ten percent off” for his military service—illustrating the emptiness of many expressions of gratitude to veterans.

“[T]he two of them would plan for the future. This took the form of fantasy. He would forget the war. He would stop fucking up. She would get her green card…She began to watch for the signs of his mood changing. She began to expect her happiness to be taken from her. The worse life got, the more she needed her happiness with him.”

At this point in the novel, the idea that Zou Lei would get her green card and Skinner’s mental health would improve becomes a “fantasy” for both of them. This description shows how their love has become codependency and how helpless they both feel.

“An army med board had determined that his psychological trauma had not been caused by the war and he wouldn’t be getting any for it.”

This moment represents Skinner’s complete loss of trust and respect in the United States government as they refuse to help Skinner. This moment of betrayal is shocking to the readers and emphasizes how little the government is willing to help its veterans.

“The tall buildings that resembled mountains were simply government projects, silent in the ticking heat. That was all they were.”

This moment represents Zou Lei’s official disillusionment with the American Dream. The tall buildings of the New York skyline, which traditionally represents opportunity and freedom, have lost their luster, and she sees them as they truly are.

“You know George Bush he want to kill everyone. The Americans kill everyone. He kills more than the other one, bin Laden. That’s what he do to us. All my life, I love America, why you think I come here. Now Bush take it and he—the butcher flung his arms out—he'd like that, throw in garbage, make it garbage.”

Tesha Noor, a Muslim immigrant from Afghanistan, offers readers a different perspective on the War on Terror. As a Muslim immigrant, Tesha is subject to racism and discrimination as a result of 9/11. He further dissolves Zou Lei’s belief that America is the perfect country and emphasizes the duality of war.

“And he looked around at night and it felt as if the war, and the freedom it might have represented, was just outside of the boundary of what he could see, as if we were in a suburb of the city.”

As Skinner begins to spiral, he begins to feel separate from everything that he knows. The image of the darkness of night—which symbolizes emptiness and loss—combined with the metaphor of the city and its suburbs fosters a sense of unease and a detachment from the self. Skinner has been separated from everything that he fought for and believed in.