Motherhood is a central element of the story, with a range of emotions including love, joy, pride, self-doubt, shame, and guilt. By the end, Celia comes to view her mother’s behavior differently upon reflection. Can you relate to a similar shift of perspective involving family or other loved ones?
When Celia was 6 she told her father she didn’t like “foreign food” even though she knew it was a lie. She tried very hard to be a “proper lady” like her mother. After experiencing more of life (understatement), when Celia was on the train sharing food with a Chinese couple, blissfully eating their pork bao, she told them she used to make bao with her father and that “My father was Chinese. Like me.”
Celia didn’t give up her mother’s American heritage but she learned to also embrace her father’s Chinese heritage. This would be passed on to Pearl and later descendants, who, through Stephen, also were of mixed ethnicities.
I grew up in a small rural town in Montana and did not know people of other races or ethnicities until I went to college in Chicago. Some of the people I met there couldn’t believe how different my background was from theirs. My first husband was Hispanic and my mother-in-law would only speak to me in Spanish until our first child was born. We live, learn, adjust, and repeat.