Intro to multicultural literature

Sir Captain Luke Collingwood, who was the captain of the ship known as the Zong! was transferring what had to be at least four hundred-seventy African American slaves from the west coast of Africa, all the way to Jamaica. Captain Collingwood, along with the rest of his crew, at a certain point on his voyage with the slaves on board decides to throw one hundred-fifty slaves off the ship. Collingwood believed that if “the African slaves on board die a natural death, the owners of the ship will have to bear the cost, but if they were ‘thrown alive into the sea, it would be the loss of the underwriters’ “ (189). Collingwood and the rest of the crew murdered all of these slaves. All of this was done with having only one purpose in mind. The purpose of the mass murder of all these slaves was so that the owners of the ship Zong! would be able to claim the insurance money from all of the deceased slaves. The insurance company refused to pay the money to the owners of Zong! when they came back from the sea. This whole problem ended up going to court. Usually when something like this happens, the insurance company in most cases would end up having to give the ship owner the money they deserve, but this is not one of those cases. Given the evidence that was presented in the court, the ship owners had not “satisfactorily proved that they needed to “jettison their cargo,’ that is, murder one hundred- fifty African slaves” (200). The case ended up going to the insurance company because the captain ending up having to kill all of those African American slaves could have been easily preventable and it was all because of the mistakes of the captain that this horrible tragedy happened. It is completely true that all of these terrible deaths of the slaves could have easily been prevented and this all happened because Captain Luke Collingwood is a selfish and absolutely awful person, along with the owners of the ship Zong! 

            Author M. NourbeSe Philip consistently mentions that this a story that cannot be told but must be told. This was something that was very confusing for me and I had absolutely no idea what the author had meant by that. It finally occurred to me that the author M. NourbeSe Philip wanted to leave all of the readers pondering. This book is a mystery and the story must be told but cannot be told. It was also very confusing to me that the book had most of their words separated and spread out. This was something else that left me almost completely clueless and it started to become very stressful. It finally occurred to me is that it has a good relation to the story itself. The words being spread out relates to the African American slaves being thrown off of the ship. It is the evil of that story that relates to the sentences being spread out. It is evil that the author would spread the words out, just like how it was so evil that all of these African American slaves were tossed off of the ship and left in the water for dead. The story must be told but cannot be told. 

            The author wrote this poem that is as long as a novel to attempt to give a voice to slavery. The author wanted to show just how poorly these slaves, along with a bunch of other African American slaves are being treated. Slaves during and around this time period were treated like absolute garbage. The slaves weren’t even considered as people. They were considered as property and that is something that is truly sickening.

Discussion Questions:

1. How do you believe the case of Gregson v Gilbert should have went?
2. What was your reaction to all of the African slaves being murdered?

The African slaves  in this book were treated like objects, where they would be thrown off overseas and it is normal. These enslaved people were being brought from Africa to Jamaica. The Zong crew threw the slaves off the boat because they were running low on water due to a navigational mistake. When the water became too low, the crew decided to throw slaves overboard into the sea. The author, M. NourbeSe Philip questions why this is not a crime. Why isn’t it the law? Slaves are property and can not be saved. Philip fights on how this should not be happening. Slaves were treated as property and animals not as human beings. 

In 1781, the author M. NourbeSe Philip revised the book Zong! He writes it in an unusual style. This is a form of a found poem. In this book the words are spread out, the words are repetitive and the stanzas do not make sense. The author makes this book unique on purpose for this book to stand out compared to all the other books. In order to understand this book you will have to read the end of the book, pages 189-211.It explains background information about the book. Honestly I was confused when I saw page 3. This is not a normal book. I had to think on a deeper level to read these readings.

The African slaves are spread out in the water thrown out overseas on the first page, the word “water” spread out represents the African Americans floating in the water (3). More than fifty people were thrown off. Slaves had a tough life, Philip states, “the more of of suffered did not exist sustenance water and want of dead” (12). Many African slaves drowned and nobody could save them.. These slaves are left lying dead on the bottom of the sea. More people had died over time. Philip wants the throwing slaves overboard to be illegal. 

In the slave ship there were African slaves that Zong departed the coast of Africa on September 6, 1781 with hundreds of slaves of slaves aboard. Due to the poor routes, many people were on the ship and spread diseases, sicknesses that were caused by deaths (Prezi). Zong’s owners declared to their insurers for the loss of the slaves. The insurers refused to pay, the court case Gregson vs Gilbert was held. The slave trade showed lots of horror and it was the mass killings of more than 130 African slaves by the crew of the British slave ship Zong. 

In 1783 was the Gregson vs Gilbert case. It  first started with James Gregson, the ship’s owner who filed an insurance claim for their loss. The Zong crew will not be getting any money. Gregson argued that Zong did not have enough water to sustain both crew and slaves. The insurance underwriter is Thomas Gilbert and it states that Zong had enough sustenance aboard when arriving to Jamaica.Therefore the first trial, freed slave Olaudah Equiana who brought news of the massacre to the attention of the anti-slavery campanigner Granville Sharp (Wikipedia). James Gregson did not let the Zong crew get away with this. Granville Sharp, worked horribly to have the ship’s crew proscuted for murder (Wikipedia). Granville Sharp was one of the first English campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade. Zong’s crew did not win on the first trial. The second trial, won with the insurers. The judge let the captain make a suitable allowance of water for each slave.

The captain of this ship is Luke Collingwood. He is a terrible human being who wants the slaves to die. Zong and his crew caused all the tragedies. He wants them to die a “natural death” (189). The Zong Crew are selfish, disturbing horrible people and they only care about their voyage. Philip questions, “the which, the when, the were, the who the throwing overboard” (15). It is not clearly stated who did it and when did it happen? Philips can not believe this is happening, this should stop. Philip shows humane throughout the book. 

Slaves are physically destroyed in the poems. Philips writes, “Slaves to the order in destroyed the circumstance in fact the property in subject in creature the loss in underwriter” (14). The insurance company found out about these people not killing the slaves, they did not pay for their claims. African Americans are destroyed, they are used as properties, and the underwriter is the safety of Africans. There was no safety. People were used, abused, hurt in such physical and emotional pain, nobody could forget this era. The slaves were malnourished and Zong Crew were ready for them to die. There is no hope for them. They were treated like animals not human (Umich). The Zong Crew does not know emotionally and physically to be thrown overseas. How can the Zong crew do this to the African slaves?

Discussion Questions:

1. How did you feel while reading this unique book were you confused? 
2. What were your reactions when you read that the African slaves were being thrown overboard? 

Work Cited

Philip, M. NourbeSe. Zong! Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459, 2008. 

Zinnober9 Zong Massacre Wikipedia.

Prezi User Gregson vs Gilbert Prezi.23 September, 2016.

Ece. Umich. The Zong. University of Michigan.

This section of Claudia Rankine’s novel Citizen takes on a different approach using a more poetic significance on lines and line breaks. I felt that Rankine’s use of “you” in this section was more powerful than others. Rankine writes, “the worst injury is feeling you don’t belong so much to you-” (146). She delivers such a compelling line to help the reader feel and understand the effects of racism. Rankine is comparing racism to feeling like you don’t even belong within yourself. Not only does the act of being discriminated against negatively affect your feelings about others, but feelings about yourself as well. Another dominant statement by Rankine is when she says, “You are not sick, you are injured- you ache for the rest of your life” (143). She describes the effects of racism as something you can’t unfeel, something that stays with you forever. By using the word “you”, she is putting us in a hypothetical situation, giving the reader a slight feeling of discrimination. She wants her readers to understand what it feels like to face racism and live as a black citizen. Her writing is so powerful because she is proving that this discrimination still occurs everyday and it can be happening to anyone. 

Similar to the rest of the book, this section continues to have a gloomy tone, until Rankine adds a burst of laughter into her writing. Rankine states, “When the waitress hands your friend the card she took from you, you laugh and ask what else her privilege gets her? Oh, my perfect life, she answers. Then you both are laughing so hard, everyone in the restaurant smiles”(148). I found this statement very ironic because it shouldn’t be funny, but it is. Our society is so used to racism that we can be unphased by an obvious racist act. The people in the restaurant are smiling because they see people laughing, without knowing that the friends are just amused by a racist microagression. 

Not only are the waiter’s actions a microaggression, it also connects to one of Rankine’s themes of “new racism”. Today’s society claims to be “post-racial”, which means “having overcome or moved beyond racism : having reached a stage or time at which racial prejudice no longer exists or is no longer a major social problem” (merriam-webster.com). We, as readers and residents of the United States, know that this claim is not entirely true. Racism isn’t as big of an issue as it was, but clear acts of racism occur every day. Throughout the novel, Rankine uses examples of Serena Williams and Trayvon Martin to prove that we are still living in a world of racism. Instead of direct racist acts, such as separate bathrooms for different races, she shows that we are now confronted with microaggressions. Rankine intends to make it known that racism, even in the aparent “post-racial” America, still exists. Although, today’s racism is subtle and often joked about, Rankine proves that it still hurts. 

Rankine ends the section with a metaphor when she says, “It wasn’t a match, I say. It was a lesson”(159). Again, she makes the reader think back to Serena Williams and remind us of everything she was put through to prevent more racism in our society. With this quote, Rankine uses the mention of sports to express the metaphor of overcoming adversity, however she knows the goal is not to win, it is to learn. Unlike a sports game, there is no end to racism and Rankine knows that we need to keep playing and fighting. 

Discussion Questions

1. Did you feel Rankine’s use of “you” was more powerful in this section? Why or why not?
2. If you were really the one in the restaurant, how would you react to the waitress’ microaggression? 

Works CitedRankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric.                         Graywolf, 2014.

In the last section of Claudia Rankine’s novel Citizen, she once again discusses the points that she’s hit over the course of the book: Microaggressions, Racism, Identification and personal stories to connect them with such as Trayvon Martin. Rankine puts the reader in a position where she continuously uses the perspective of “you” to understand how life feels all around you as a black citizen. She also implements images to connect these feelings to its origins, circling back to slave ships and the beginning of a treacherous time for African Americans.

Rankine opens up this chapter by diving into the conclusion of these feelings. She writes, “Some years there exists a wanting to escape-you, floating above your certain ache-still the ache coexists. Call that the immanent you-” (Rankine 311). Rankine promptly discusses that their “aches” still exist, that racism as a whole, and all the damage that comes with it, exists within their own bodies which they can’t escape from. Rankine goes on to repeat the word “you” singling out only you, the reader, to feel the position and identification of her descriptions. She continues with these descriptions of how the body feels drowned and that “only half concerns you,” (Rankine 319), allowing us to put ourselves in the situation of a black citizen who is constantly being pushed away from mattering fully. Feelings can be powerful and suppressing those feelings to not be free and thoughtful of is damaging to a person who can’t express themselves in their full comfort of their own body.

Rankine goes on to discuss how African Americans voices aren’t heard as much, putting them in a more uncomfortable situation, imaging “your voice entangles this mouth whose words are here as pulse strumming shut out, shut in, shut up-” ending on shut up, silencing the voices of African Americans and what their words mean for weighing in on situations in different matters. Feeling as nothing has been accomplished or liberating enough to counteract these microaggressions and behavior that seem to beat their already broken bodies, wearing them down more, feeling the tiredness of not belonging to your own self, to your own body. She images this through a picture of mangled body parts, one conveying an arm or limb stuck in the mouth of the figurine and another appearing to choke the throat where the voice propels, striking the feeling of being silenced and limited of speech and projection of their thoughts, and still she refers all of this to “you.”

The story of Trayvon Martin, a young 17 year old high school student, fatally shot, even being unarmed, serves a purpose to the justice system and how it internally has worked for years on end. Zimmerman was acquitted after claiming self defense, describing a physical altercation between the two, but what does justice mean if the death of a young black citizen happened in cold-blood, being he was unarmed? We see and hear stories like these all the time, and sometimes not as frequent as when they happen. Rankine paints a picture for these stories all throughout the book in other examples, but in Trayvon’s case, the feeling that “you” feel, is a sense of not knowing what could happen, and understanding now as you grow, the undesirable feeling of being afraid from the police, being afraid of what it may lead to simply based on the color of your skin. Rankine’s depiction of Trayvon and “those feelings” she’s discussed throughout the chapter, signify the sort of feelings that feel like a “warning sign” or a “hazard” when indeed they shouldn’t be but constantly do everyday and it’s apart of their lives.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you feel the use of the word “you” in the last chapter is effective in capturing the essence of emotion to display Rankine’s message?
2. When reading about Trayvon Martin, did the text make you think about what those feelings Rankine describes would be like day in and day out, and if so how?

Works Cited
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric.                         Graywolf, 2014. 

          This section of Claudia Rankine’s novel Citizen focuses heavily on instances of racism, not only on specific cases but groups as well. Rankine even skips around time periods like from hurricane Kartina in 2005 to the Jim Crow era that occurred late into the 19th century and the early 20th century. Rankine pairs these very strong examples with equally strong images and she uses them to her advantage to floor her microaggressions.

  Rankine begins on page 82 with the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The most violent image she exposes to the viewer in this instance is with the bodies “missing limbs” and the “bodies lodged in piles of rubble, dangling from rafters, lying face down, arms outstretched on parlor floors” (Rankine 84). Many African Americans were on the streets of New Orleans at this time and were very poor as Eugene Robinson’s Disintegration. Robinson says, “There is no one explanation for how so many people ended up staying rather than leaving… Perhaps if Nagin had pressed all the city’s school buses into service, thousands more might have escaped the storm” (116). The truth is that the city didn’t care. They were more concerned about keeping the tourist attractions more intact rather than making sure all of the people living there were able to make it out safely. Rankine ties into Robinson’s observation of this fact to show how prevalent racism still is today. Without naming the specific hurricane, it would be plausible that someone would think this happened long ago but it was only 14 years ago which isn’t that long ago in the scheme of things. This city was never really punished for practically letting specific members of their population, only receiving backlash in the form of a slap on the wrist, and it shows how racism is an applicable topic still today even if some refuse to acknowledge it and Claudia Rankine refuses to let them do that. 

Rankine address the topic that is on many African Americans minds today, police brutality. To draw the reader’s attention to this, she uses the example of Rodney King. Rodney King was pulled over for speeding after a car chase on March 3rd, 1991 and when the cops pulled him over, he was pulled out of the car and brutally beaten by police. This attack was broadcast after being filmed by George Holiday. The officers that committed this crime were acquitted after a three month trial. After two decades, King made a public statement that he had forgiven the officers. He was found dead in his pool on June 17th, 2012 yet there seemed to be no foul play of course (Biography.com Editors “Rodney King”). Rankine uses this example of this man being largely mistreated, to say the least, by police to show how young black men are the prime target of police back then and even today for petty crimes that whites would get a slap on the wrist for. Rodney King becomes a symbol for Rankine to use for showing how over and over again African American males are targeted specifically by the very people that are there to protect them (117). 

     Rankine manipulates these images and examples of African Americans being thoroughly mistreated in life or death situations. She violently tries to open the eyes of the reader to these prevalent examples of racism that were applicable in 1991 to 2005 and even now in the sense of police brutality. These are very sad and fueling instances for many African Americans, and even whites that are ashamed this has happened and is still going on, and Claudia Rankine lays it all out on the line for her readers to leave them gasping at what is at the basis of American history and how it still shines through today. 

Discussion questions:

1. Do you think the personal stories like that of Rodney King were effectively in furthering the idea that racism is still very prevalent today?
2. What other personal examples have you either seen or experienced that Claudia Rankine touched on generally but did not go into full detail about?

Works Cited
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric.                         Graywolf, 2014. 

Robinson, Eugene. Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America. Anchor Books, 2011

“Rodney King.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 Apr. 2019, https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/rodney-king.

In Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine uses her encounters with racism, second point of view, and imagery to allow readers to experience the encounters first hand rather than observing from afar. On page 7, Rankine states, “send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog the lungs… they drown you in sound… like lighting they strike you across the larynx.” This descriptive passage is a reaction to the memory of a friend calling Rankin by her black  housekeepers name. The description of how this made her feel is then passed on to the reader by using strong words of imagery. The words make you get a feeling dumbfoundedness and sadness. Throughout the book and especially in this passage by using the second person it makes you feel it is happening to you personally. Even though from an outside perspective this could have just been seen as a mistake but by using “you” and “yourself” you picture how you would feel if you were involved in this econterment. A friend calling Rankine by a black housekeepers name makes her feel angry because is she being called that because “you two were the only black people in her life” or was is because she was distracted and did not realize that she had called her that? (Rankine 7). By the friend calling her that makes for an uncomfortable situation to speak up or correct someone and with the use of imagery it shows that. 

The encounters with racism and the second point of view is displayed again on page 15 when Rankine recalls the story of when her neighbor called the police on her black male friend who is babysitting her child, whom he thought was disturbed and breaking into the home. The neighbor took it upon himself to call the police before she could explained to him that he was friend babysitting. This action shows how racism is displayed in this passage. If the man in the house was white the neighbor would have probably not noticed anything off but since he was of color the neighbor felt it was needed to call the police. Using the second point of view throughout this passage makes the reader feel like you are in this situation and puts a sense of anger and feeling of uncomfortableness within them. The feeling of uncomfortableness happens when Rankine states on page 15 “your friend is speaking to you neighbor when you arrive home… your neighbor has apologized to your friend and is now apologizing to you”. 

Rankine’s encounternments continue on page 18 when she goes to visit her therapist whom she has only spoken with on the phone but is now going to meet for the first time. Rankin states that “when the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get aways from my house! What are you doing in my yard?”. By using the words “yells, at the top of her lungs” readers can picture how the woman is screaming and how Rankine is standing there. To compare and explain the level of aggression, it is later described “as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepard has gained the power of speech” (Rankine 18). This instance stresses the idea of racism and how even such a minor thing as knocking on a door as a black woman, for an appointment can be made into a big deal. By using the second point of view it makes the reader feel as if they are the one walking out the door and getting yelled at. At the end of the counterment on page 18 the Rankine’s therapist states “I am so sorry, so, so sorry” but this seems meaningless because there was no reason to yell and Rankine in the first place.

When looking at these smaller encounterments they may just be seen as mistakes or not big deals but when the reader looks at these together it shows all of these microaggressions add up and even though they seem like honest mistakes they make the person they are happening to frustrated and angry. 

Discussion questions:

1. How does the second point of view make you, as the reader feel? Would it make a difference if it was third person or first person point of view?
2.  What are some other examples of imagery seen throughout the sections?

Works Cited

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Penguin, 2015.

            In chapter I of Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine uses microaggressions to make the reader feel uncomfortable and convey her point that though it may not be as obvious, racism is still prevalent in society today. Rankine constantly uses “you” to get to the reader personally. She does this because it is one thing to hear or read about stories of racism or stereotypes, but it is totally different when you are the one being put in those situations. Because the stories are told in second person, us as readers can’t assign our emotions to a specific individual or character. We feel it personally and that is exactly what Rankine intended to do. She expresses this with stories filled with microaggressions, which are defined as “verbal, behavioral, or environmental actions (whether intentional or unintentional) that communicate hostility toward oppressed or targeted groups including people of color, women, persons with disabilities, and religious minorities” (“A Guide”). The important part about that definition is that it can be totally unintentional. This is significant because the fact that it is happening subconsciously reiterates that racism is still prevalent and imbedded in our present-day society.

            Early in the chapter Rankine talks about how people react to microaggressions. She says how particular moments “send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog the lungs. Like thunder they drown you in sound, no, like lightning they strike you across the larynx” (7). Rankine personifies the effects of microaggressions and demonstrates how deadly they can be. After certain moments, she finds herself asking questions like “What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I hear what I think I heard?” (9). These internal questions reiterate how small microaggressive interactions and comments that are sometimes unintentional can have a profound impact on someone.

            In the last story about visiting the therapist, Rankine literally walks you through the encounter with the therapist. She says, “You have only ever spoken on the phone…You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked. At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?” (18). Rankine wants you to picture yourself walking to the house going to your appointment and how harmless the encounter should be, but how intense and extreme it becomes. The therapist immediately apologizes and retreats but it is clear the damage has been done. This shows it only takes an instant for certain stereotypes and racial definitions to subconsciously kick in and how normal situations can be escalated for no reason at all.

            Another example is the story she includes of you on the United Airlines plane. Rankine builds up your character stating that you have an “elite status from a year’s worth of travel” which assumes you are sitting in first class and should have no problems or worries (12). When the girl and her mother arrive at the seats adjacent to you, the girl states “these are our seats, but this is not what I expected” and the mother reluctantly says “I see… I’ll sit in the middle” (12). Again, you are put in the situation yourself and have no reason to believe you will be uncomfortable after the encounter but that is inherently the point. No one ever anticipates or expects racial stereotypes or definitions, and that is why microaggressions are dangerous and being brought to light by Rankine.

Discussion Questions:

Is there a specific order in which Rankine lists her stories? If so, why in that arrangement?

On page 14, what is Rankine trying to convey when arguing between the “historical self” and “self self”?

Works Cited

“A Guide to Responding to Microaggressions.” Illinois.edu, https://wie.engineering.illinois.edu/a-guide-to-responding-to-microaggressions/.

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Penguin, 2015.

In The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston uses her Aunt, Moon Orchid, and Brave Orchid’s children to compare American and Chinese culture. On page 121, Kingston writes, “How greedy to play with presents in front of the giver. How impolite (“untraditional” in chinses) her children were.” In this statement, Kingston is giving Brave Orchid’s reaction to her children playing with the toys their aunt got them from China. In Chinese culture, giving gifts is a sign of respect and gratitude regardless if it was big or small and expensive or inexpensive. In Chinese culture, you are also not supposed to open gifts and play with gifts in front of the person who gave it to you. This is because by opening it and playing with it right away, it gives the impression that you care about the value of it more than the thought behind the gifts. For this reason, Brave Orchid scolds her children for playing with the gifts right in front of their aunt, even though growing up in America the children were used to opening up presents right away and playing with them. On Holidays and Birthdays in America, children would wake up to presents and would be able to spend their whole day playing with them. By the children playing with their presents, they are just doing what they grew up seeing around them in regard to gift-giving. 

  Chinese and American culture is also compared when Kingston writes, “No, she would stand, as her sister was probably standing in a line she could not see from here.” (115). Brave orchid is thinking this when her children ask her to sit down after Moon Orchid’s plane has arrived. This is because Brave Orchid remembers how it was when she came over to America. She would have been on a ship for many days than would have to wait at places like Ellis island for her to get processed. For this reason, she is empathic with her sister waiting in this line, so she stands and waits with her. Brave Orchard talks about how her children have no feelings towards it because they did not have to go through it. Her kids never had to wait on a line to see if they made the journey to the United States just to say one wrong thing and be turned away back to China. Kingston writes, “Her American children…” (115) when saying how they wanted to sit while waiting and Brave Orchid wanted to stand, but this was because her children did not know what it meant to stand and wait on a line that will determine your future. 

   In The Woman Warrior, Kingston makes it seems like Chinese culture is more disciplined than American culture. Kingston writes, “Her American children could not sit very long. They did not understand sitting; they had wandering feet.” (113). In her mother’s eyes, her children should be able to sit in the airport with her and wait for Moon Orchid’s plane to land. Brave Orchard feels like her children are unable to sit and wait because of the American society they grew up in. In this American society, people are unable to sit in one place for an extended period of time and instead just like to wander around and look for something to do to pass the time. This differs from what she is used to from growing up in China, being able to focus on one thing for an extended period of time. Brave Orchard feels that by her children growing up in America and not in China like her, they do not hold the same values as her. 

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you think that the children were being disrespectful in playing with the gifts while Moon Orchid was still in the room?
2. Do you think that the comparison between Chinese and American culture was equal within the book?

Work Cited:

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. Vintage International, 1976.

Ghosts can be found in every chapter of The Woman Warrior. They permeate all parts of the book. These ghosts have many different meanings and take many different forms. They can appear as malevolent spirits, such as the ‘Sitting Ghost’ that Brave Orchid encounters in her years at the To Keung School of Midwifery. Kingston writes that “This Sitting Ghost has many wide black mouths. It is dangerous. It is real” (74). Yet there are other ghosts that seem to do no harm, that just exist, such as “Taxi Ghosts, Bus Ghosts, Police Ghosts, Fire Ghosts. Meter Reader Ghosts, Tree Trimming Ghosts, Five-and-Dime Ghosts” (97). Kingston says that “America has been full of machines and ghosts…” (96). These ghosts that are mentioned so many times have both a literal and a metaphorical meaning throughout the story. They represent the confusion Kingston feels about her life, never knowing if the stories that her mother tells her are reality or fiction. She cannot tell what parts of her past are true memories or a ‘ghost’ of a memory, a fiction she created. The ghosts also literally represent people that surround them in their daily lives. To Brave Orchid and her children, the ghosts are the people in America who are not Chinese, who live a life filled with traditions and culture they do not understand. But China is also a ghost story to Kingston. When her mother talks to her about returning to China, Kingston thinks “I am to return to China where I have never been” (76). Though her mother “funnelled China into their ears,” China is a foreign land she has never been to, another story in which she does not know which parts are true and which are fantasy.  Though the ghosts change through the perspective of different characters, they tend to represent things that are unknown. 

In the chapter “At the Western Palace,” Brave Orchid brings her sister, Moon Orchid, to the United States to live with her family. Moon Orchid’s husband has remarried an American woman. Brave Orchid believes that her sister should go to her husband and retake what is rightfully hers. When the estranged husband first sees Moon Orchid and Brave Orchid, he refers to them as “grandmothers” and thinks that “these women had such awful faces” (152). His inability to recognize them separates them from himself. There is a divide between the two worlds these different characters inhabit and that turns them all into ghosts to each other. Kingston writes “Her husband looked like one of the ghosts passing the car windows, and she must look like a ghost from China. They had indeed entered the land of ghosts, and they had become ghosts” (153). America is the land of ghosts, filled with the ‘white ghosts’ that are repeatedly mentioned by both the narrator and her mother. Moon Orchid’s husband has been here so long, and becomes so ingrained in the American way of life that he has become synonymous with these ‘white ghosts.’ China has now become a ghost land to him, similar to how it is for the narrator, and so he sees these two old women as ghosts from a life that once belonged to him but no longer does. This is extremely powerful due to the fact that Brave Orchid has been surrounded by ghosts her whole life, and has worked hard to defeat many of them. She now lives her life in a land full of ghosts that she must deal with daily. Her move to this new place and her inability to accept american customs has led to her becoming a ghost in all the places she has known. She is a ghost floating between worlds, with no real home. She has become something that she learned about, and worked against, her whole life. 

Discussion Questions 

1. What is the importance of having both Moon Orchid and her husband seen as ghosts in “At the Western Palace?” 
2. How do the many ghosts throughout the story affect the lives of the narrator and her relatives?