Sui Sin Far

Fady Keilo
1/30/09
Eng 48B
Sui Sin Far Journal
“But the Little One shrunk shrunk from her and tried to hide himself in the folds of the white woman’s skirt.”
As a narrative of the life of Chinese immigrants, Sui Sin Far’s “In The Land Of The Free” is a very ironic story and in many ways directly reflects the irony of the Chinese experience in North America and in particular in California. The irony, of course, of S.S.F.’s story of a Chinese couple and their “annexed” son is that after having become accustomed to the white people taking care of him, he no longer wished to return to his Chinese parents. This is indicative of the Chinese experience in California because many who came to San Francisco in search of fortunes to take back to China never were able to return to their wives and families. Perhaps due to the alienation of having become in some ways accustomed to Euro-American society, and in many ways due to the shame of returning dishonored (such as having their long hair cut off), these Chinese men who came in search of temporary work never returned to their far-away homes. Yet another parallel to this ironic situation is the manner in which the Chinese and other Asians were treated in America. As cheap labor, the development of the railroads and post-Gold Rush California was heavily dependent on the blood, sweat, and tears of these so-called “coolies”. Yet these very same people, instrumental in the development of western America, were treated like dirt and were not even considered capable of becoming American.
As an immigrant in modern day America, especially as an infant immigrant, I never had to endure the hardships expected of these day laborers. My father, on the other hand, had to work his tail end off just to be able to get his green card as a need employee for the company he worked for. Being put in such an unenviable position, my father had to be willing to do all the dirty work at his support systems company in the hopes that his labors would pay off with a recommendation for a green card due to his skills. He spent years of his life working a low paying job, doing rather difficult work that included both manual labor as well as computer skills, and in the end was awarded with his green card, and eventually citizenship. So in many ways I did not have to endure the difficulties and struggles of naturalization because it was gifted to me by my father who toiled like a “coolie” as well as my mother who was with him every step of the way.