Instruction
1. Why did both Rivera and Yamamoto choose child narrators? In some ways, this is limiting; a child will not have the analytical abilities or knowledge of social codes to understand everything he or she sees. Then again, for the same reasons, a child narrator can be useful: less is filtered, and the reader may be able to understand what the child does only imperfectly. Try to include an example from each work that illustrates why the authors chose a child narrator.
2. All three of our authors—Rivera, Yamamoto, and Song—write with a certain bleakness. Being Latino or Asian-American in mid-20th-century America appears to have been quite difficult. What was attractive about America for the characters in these stories? Why did the protagonist’s family stay in Texas in Earth/Devour; how did Rosie’s mother endure marriage to her philistine husband; and why does Song still go to Chinatowns? (Does American justify all the suffering it causes its Latinos and Asian-Americans?)