Kim Ronyoung's Clay Walls

They cannot go back to Korea, save they cannot live their lives in the United States as they lived in Korea.

The startle nip of the book sees Haesu becoming fed up with her argument as house pillageer to a rich white American woman, Mrs. Randolph. Haesu refuses to clean the toilet again, and she quits her job, though it is important to her and her family economically. The woman is revolutionize and refuses to pay Haesu what she has earned. Haesu may be a servant, but she refuses to be treated in such a degrading way. She takes unaccompanied a dime from the change the woman has given her, which is what she need for transportation home. The bigotry of the woman emerges full-bl witness: "Mrs. Randolph glared at Haesu. She began to fume. 'Why you venturous yellow . . . '" (6).

Haesu has maintained her dignity in a delicate situation. She needed the funds, but there was something more important than money at stake---her humanity and self-respect. This is the key to the book and to the immigrant characters who carve their new-sprung(prenominal) lives out of the American overthrowscape. They succeed in handgriping their ethnical and historical ties alive while assimilating enough to go far and grow as individuals, as families, and as a people.

This musical composition of survival-with-dignity is maintained throughout the novel, from the first scene to the last. The immigrants face either sort of bigotry and discrimination, facing defeat and degradation eve

Qwaksan was gone. . . . The land was Momma's only holding in her homeland and it had been taken away from her; her only holding in the world. Suddenly, I felt as if I had been stamped with stupidity. That was what I was mantic to look. She had hung onto Qwaksan as long as she could. I wanted to telephone call (300).

Ronyoung, Kim. Clay Walls.

Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990.

The final scene between female child and mother is as crucial as the opening scene because it shows how the child of an immigrant finally comes to understand what sacrifices the early immigrants made to keep open their dreams and cultural connections alive. Faye for the first time appreciates how hard her mother has fought to keep a true connection with Korea, not merely for her throw sake but for the sake of her family, her daughter. Haesu explains to Faye that the land she had owned is no longer her own. She is saying that the last specific tie to Korea has today ben broken, at least in terms of actual land:

ry day, but they never surrender and keep insisting on maintaining not only their humanity but their sense of their own culture.

I stood up. "Oh yeah? Look at this." I off-key my head from side to side. I looked up at the alternate then down to the ground. I looked Bertha in the eyes. "We people understand magic" I said. . . . (207-208).

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