1. the gangster we are all looking for
palm, water, loss

2. suh-top! Family and home redefined by diaspora
Father’s attempt to assimilate vs daughter’s fantasies of return
Powerlessness of refugee experience (29)
Glass animals vs glass butterfly
suh-top!

3. What are the two meanings of the title of the second chapter, “palm”?
Question 1

4. water & palm What is the narrator’s neighborhood like?
How does the setting reflect the narrator’s character?
How has the narrator’s family been changed and how is she handling it?
What is Ma’s character like? How is she handling life in the US?
Why does Ma become upset when the pool is covered over? (52-54)
Palm tree = increased awareness of her parents as fallible, human, and complex
Palm of the hand = increased awareness by the author of her own growth, change and desires
water & palm

5. palm of the hand What is “The Room”? (58)
Palm of hands = loss of childhood innocence (63)
“I saw my father’s car sliding down the soft wall of the canyon”
Palm of the tree = loss of home & family (63)
“Where does water go when it goes away?”
“My palms in the dark…” (64)
In-between childhood and adulthood
palm of the hand

6. What game do the neighborhood kids make up at the Church of the Jehovah’s Witnesses? (49-50)
What happens between the narrator and her friend in the tower of the Church? (70-71)
Who haunts the narrator at the end of the chapter? (74)
the tower

7. What is Ma and Ba’s relationship like
What is Ma and Ba’s relationship like? Why do they fall in love with each other?
Why does Ma say that “war is a bird” (87)?
Who is the “gangster we are all looking for”?
questions