The Land of the Free?

Mary Kate Ryser-Oatman

Journal #8

Sui Sin Far, "In the Land of the Free"

January 30, 2009

"The Little One protested lustily against the transfer; but his mother covered her face with her sleeve and his father silently led her away. Thus was the law of the land complied with" (Far 880).

Hom Hing and Lae Choo did not have papers for their son, and there was no proof that he was their child. The customs officers told them their son has to be put in their custody until the government approves his release back to them.

The first thing I noticed when I read this passage was how ironic it was compared to the title of the story. Without reading any part of the story, the title makes the story sound very positive regarding the freedom in America. I think that all immigrants imagined that was how it would immediately once they stepped off the ship in America. It was known as the land of opportunity, where people were free. This was far from the truth. Sure, there was freedom, but only to a degree. Immigrants had the hardest time in America because they had to prove themselves. They had to learn English in order to survive there. The jobs available to them were usually the low end jobs that paid very little, and they lived in ghettos. So yes, they were free, but at a price. Hom Hing and Lae Choo had to comply with the law of the country they live in, even though that meant separating them from their young son. One of the worst things you can do is separate a mother from her child, and that young boy will be all alone in a foreign land.

I felt really bad for the little boy in the story as well as his parents. They clearly did not include him in their papers because he had not been born yet when they first emigrated to America. It seems really unfair of the customs agency to not understand this mistake and just let him pass through so he could go with his parents, but then again if they did that for them they would have to do that for everyone, and maybe the children they were bringing were really not their own. Hom Hing and Lae Choo were very fortunate that they were able to have someone go get the paper all the way in Washington D.C, I am sure most of the families have no money and no one who will go there to get the paper they need to have their children released to them.

According to Wikipedia, Sui Sin Far stayed close to her Chinese roots, "While working as a legal secretary she continued to write and although her appearance and manners would have allowed her to easily pass as a dignified Englishwoman, she asserted her Chinese heritage and wrote articles that told what life was like for a Chinese woman in white America." Sui Sin Far showed the world what is was like for Chinese emigrants, especially women, in American society and the hardships they faced. People were able to understand how difficult it was for Chinese emigrants to get away with mistakes such as not having papers for a child coming to America.