Culture 5

Bibliography
Na, An. 2006. WAIT FOR ME. New York, NY: Penguin Group. ISBN 9780142409183.

Plot Summary
In this story we see two sisters telling their stories. The main character is Mina. She is trying very hard to be the perfect daughter, but in the process of trying to live up to unreal expectations she has told many lies. Her mother thinks she is the perfect daughter and blatantly favors her. Mina’s sister, Suna, is hearing impaired and thus a lesser person in her mother’s eyes. Mina takes care of her younger sister and tries to protect her from her unloving mother. The story is told in alternating views with the chapters going between Mina and Suna.

Critical Analysis
Mina and her sister Suna are Korean-Americans and this is the fictional story of their lives. They were both born in America and have grown up here. The sisters speak both Korean and English. The parents speak some English, both they are more comfortable speaking Korean. The setting mostly takes place in their home and at the family’s Dry Cleaning Shop in a suburb of Los Angeles. Most of the people in the story are Korean-American. In the home they eat Korean food that the mother prepares. They use the words Uhmma and Apa when referring to their parents. The Korean words that are used are not italicized, but are written into the text. Usually the meanings of the words follow the Korean phrases. An example is when the character of Jonathan is talking to Mina’s mother. “Ahn-young-ha-say-yo, Mrs. Kang, Jonathan said. Please come in.” These words and phrases that are used throughout the text add to the cultural authenticity. The plot revolves mainly around Mina. She is the older sister and feels like she needs to look out for her younger sister. She is also the one that her mother has put the most pressure on to be perfect. As a teenager she has a lot of pressure on her and in an attempt to be the perfect daughter she has created a web of lies. In order to try to escape from all the lies she has created she has started to steal money from her parent’s Dry Cleaners Shop. She meets a young Mexican American boy who is following his dreams, and she begins to realize that she has choices that she will need to make. Leaving it all behind her seems to be the most promising, but then she would be leaving her sister behind. The end of the story does not clearly wrap everything up, but it does clear up some things and leaves us with the hope that she will be just fine in the future and that she will not abandon her sister. The characters are interesting and are not stereotypes. The book is good about cultural authenticity, but it does tend to move a bit slow. The chapters that go back and forth are sometimes distracting and hard to follow.

Review Excerpts
From Booklist*Starred Review* Gr. 8-11. The author of the Printz Award Book A Step from Heaven(2001) tells another contemporary Korean American story of leaving home. This time, though, love is as powerful as the intense family drama. The focus is on high-school-senior Mina, trapped in the web of lies invented to satisfy her overbearing mom, Uhmma, who expects Mina to attend Harvard and escape the drudgery of their small-town dry-cleaning store. Mina's brilliant friend, Jonathan Kim, helps her cheat and steal. She uses him, but he thinks he loves her--and he eventually rapes her. Then Mexican immigrant Ysrael, a gifted musician on his way to San Francisco, comes to work in the store, and he and Mina fall passionately in love. Will she go with him and make a new life free of lies? Ysrael is too perfect, just as Uhmma is demonized, but both are shown from Mina's viewpoint, and it is her struggle with her secrets that is spellbinding. Alternating with Mina's first-person narrative are short vignettes from the perspective of Mina's deaf younger sister, who Mina protects. The conflicts of love, loyalty, and betrayal are the heart of the story--and they eventually show Mina her way. Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition

Voice of Youth Advocates( June 01, 2006 ; 0-399-24275-9 ) Mina's mother has her life planned out for her. After Mina graduates at the top of her class, she will leave the family's laundromat in California and attend Harvard. Mina, a seventeen-year-old Korean American, does not have the high grades that her mother thinks she does. Mina has doctored her report card with the help of Jonathon Kim, the son of a wealthy friend of the family. She does, however, have a plan: She has been stealing small amounts of cash from the register when she does the nightly receipts, and she intends to run away and live on her own after graduation. She feels responsible, however, for supporting her younger half-sister Suna, whom her mother treats poorly. While struggling to decide what she can do with her life, pretending to study for the SAT, and fending off Jonathon's amorous advances, Mina must hide her developing relationship with Ysrael, a Mexican teen who has come to work in their shop while Mina's stepfather recovers from a strained back. Events come to a head when the missing money is discovered. Ysrael is blamed and leaves for music school in San Francisco, and Mina finally stands up to her mother. This Printz award-winning author crafts a difficult book about a girl in a difficult situation. Mina and her sister share the telling of their story. Mina's chapters are in first person, and Suna's are in third. The flipping back and forth creates a distance from both characters. Mina is not particularly sympathetic. The convention of using quotation marks only when English is spoken makes it tough to distinguish Mina's thoughts from conversations in Korean where no quotes are used. Some teens might see themselves in Mina's struggle to free herself from her mother's control, but most will not bother struggling through the flowery language or the slow-moving story.-Timothy Capehart.

Connections
Read A STEP FROM HEAVEN by An Na.
Research Korean-Americans