Who's Irish?

The protagonist in “Who’s Irish?” narrates her experience living with her daughter and son-in-law and being the caretaker for their child. She blames her granddaughter’s bad behavior on her Irish heritage and is also resentful of her role as babysitter in her daughter’s house, which she claims is an American expectation. Because the story is told in her voice and her second language of English, readers can observe the miscommunications she experiences as well as the corrective voice of the narrator’s daughter throughout the story. Although she tries to respect her daughter’s wishes of not using corporal punishment on her granddaughter and instead using her “words,” her words fail her more than once and she does end up spanking her granddaughter at the park. When the protagonist moves in with her son-in-law’s mother after this incident, she is surprised to learn that it seems that the Irish listen to their mothers’ words.

The dramatic present of Art Woo’s conflict in “Birthmates” is his stay at the “welfare hotel” for the conference of the dying business he is in while preparing to see his perceived competitor in the insurance industry, Billy. Art is fixated on Billy and how he moves through the world with a carelessness that is exhibited in his language.