“Go’way”

First of all, wow, I did not except this story to start nor end the way it did. [Just FYI if you haven't read "In the Land of the Free," you definitely should cause spoilers, so you've been warned.] I feel like the title, “In the Land of the Free” somehow lied to me. When I think land of the free I don’t really think of someone’s child being taken away from them, I just think America. Personally, I felt like this story was heartbreaking. A mother and her son are finally reunited with dad who hasn’t met their son, and the kid gets taken away! [See spoilers]

            I think what hit me the hardest in this tale was the end. After ten months of separation between mother and son to hear your child say, “Go’way” must be heartbreaking (Far 101). A mother’s love is unconditional and when Lae Choo heard these words come out of her son’s mouth it must have felt like a stab to her heart. She probably felt that her title of mother was taken from her by the missionary woman who took care of her son when she was unable to. Not because she didn’t want to take care of her son but because he didn’t have the proper paper work to allow him entry into the United States.

That last scene made me feel like she was a complete stranger to her son. “But, the Little One shrunk from her and tried to hide himself in the folds of the white woman’s skirt.” (Far 101). I don’t get the feeling that the little boy was just being shy, but maybe a little afraid because he didn’t recognize her? When he is hiding from his mother she is on her knees with her arms stretched towards her son (Far 101). I’m not a mother, but I feel like that would feel awful. You carry someone with you for nine months, and you care for them after their born, you love them, and to have them not connect with you? Yikes. That’s all the author leaves us with too, the son telling his mother to go away. We don’t know what happens afterwards, which really bothers me. Like I want to know that they’re okay. That eventually the little boy and his family were able to gradually connect again, but I will never know. Maybe this was a way for the author to allow the reader to come up with their own ending, be confused, or face the reality of what happens when separated loved ones are reunited. I don’t know, but I really wish I got some closure!

            It’s sad to think that immigrant children are probably taken from their parents by customs officers more often then we think. “There cannot be any law that would keep a child from its mother!” (Far 96). Sadly though, this story illustrates that somehow there are laws (at least at this time) that did separate a child from its mother. In this case, there was no proof that Lae Choo or her husband were his birth parents. This scenario doesn’t just apply to children though, I’ve known parents separated from their children because they’re illegal immigrants and their children born here in the United States. It probably doesn’t feel like the land of opportunity, or the land of the free when your family is torn apart.