Who's Irish?

Choose two or more stories from Who’s Irish? and examine the effect that unfulfilled cultural expectations, for both Chinese immigrants and their children, have on these families as a whole.

How does Gish Jen use language as a means of conveying isolation for some of the characters in this collection?

What symbolic significance does the hole in Chin’s father’s cheek hold? Are there other physical descriptions of characters in this collection that seem to represent something beyond their physical bodies?

What is the metaphorical meaning of Art Woo’s unborn baby not being able to survive its birth because of its diagnosed brittle bone disease?

In “House, House, Home,” why does Pammie become so interested in space and “what it makes possible” (165)? How does Pammie go about making space for herself? Do other characters in this collection go about looking for space for themselves? What does this process look like for them?

What is the significance of the narrator’s malachite beads in “The Water Faucet Vision” ending up in the gutter?

In “Duncan in China,” what does Duncan’s bathtub, which has both hot and cold running water, symbolize?

How does Pammie come to understand herself and her heritage through Sven’s often discriminatory and reductive comments about what it means to be Chinese?