By Justine Trinh
When author Daniel Tam-Claiborne reached out to me to ask if I could review his debut novel, Transplants, I was initially flattered. I often write my reviews with the self-deprecating mindset that no one reads my reviews, so getting the email was nice. But then the feelings of doubt crept in as I wondered if I could even write this review. I was afraid I would have nothing to say—Transplants was not the typical book I tend to gravitate towards (often Vietnamese American works or memoirs), but I went into it with an open mind. As I was reading his novel, I realized I had nothing to worry about as I found myself drawn in by the story.
Transplants follows Lin, a Chinese student, who is closer to her pets than people. In exchange for her newest pet, a cat she names Boom, she promises her mother that she will make a friend in college, which proves to be easier said than done. Her roommates hate her pets and the fact that she is dating a white foreigner, Travis, who also happens to be her English teacher. However, eventually Lin meets Liz, Travis’s fellow English teacher who has gone to China after her mother’s sudden death, and they become unlikely friends. Liz encourages Lin to break it off with Travis, but Travis later retaliates by failing Lin despite the fact she is the best English speaker in her class. Liz tries to appeal to the headmistress but ends up revealing the relationship, which results in Lin’s expulsion. Lin and Liz end up switching places where Lin goes to Liz’s hometown in Ohio to attend the local community college and Liz stays in China. They both think this arrangement is temporary until a global pandemic occurs that prevents travel and deepens the political rift between the United States and China. As a result, Lin and Liz must adapt to their new reality.
Tam-Claiborne describes the COVID pandemic without ever naming it. By not naming the pandemic, it conveys the interchangeability of attitudes towards Asian/American in relation to disease and infection—after all, this is not the first time Anti-Asian hate occurred. For example, the Page Act of 1875 which banned the immigration of Chinese women to the United States, was enacted because of the fear that they carried infectious diseases. Eithne Luibhéid, professor of gender and ethnic studies at the University of Arizona, states that the American Medical Association believed “Chinese immigrants carried distinct germs to which they were immune, but from which whites would die if exposed.” Thus, their exclusion was necessary to protect American citizens.
The invocation of the pandemic also reminds those who lived during that time of the uncertainty that followed when the world shut down. When Liz’s brother, Phil, and Lin are accosted by an older white man accusing them of bringing the “kung flu” virus over to the United States, I am reminded of the fear of the same thing happening to me when I went grocery shopping with my boyfriend and clinging tightly onto his arm as other shoppers glared at me. Phil, like me, was raised in America, and yet he is conflated as Asian, playing into the common idea that all Asians look alike. To this racist white man, there is no difference between Chinese and Chinese American, and as a result, the man feels justified to attack Phil verbally.
This incident shows how belonging and identity are in question; this insight can be seen with Liz and Lin too. Throughout the book, Liz gets mistaken as Chinese when she is in China while Lin goes to a Chinese American student event only to be ostracized for being Chinese and not Chinese American. Liz and Lin must navigate a world in which neither truly belongs, and belonging itself becomes a point of contention. In Liz’s case, she is trying to understand the place her parents left before she was born and continues to impact her even though she is only connected to China through her ancestral line. While Liz wants to know more about her lineage, Lin wants to fit in in America. When she sees the flyer for the Chinese American Alliance, she decides to go because she wants “to meet more people willing to bridge the distance between her new home and the one she’d just left.” However, when she admits that she is “really from” China, the president of the group makes it clear that the group “is really for Chinese Americans” and not for her. I could understand Lin’s desire to belong in a new country and make connections, but I can also understand the frustration the Chinese American students experience as they are mistaken for Chinese and not Chinese American all the time.
In addition, I loved the character development Lin goes through and found it relatable. Lin starts off as a loner in the beginning of the book, and even though she tries to form connections with the people around her such as Travis, she treats these relationships as school assignments to be studied for. However, this approach does not work, as she is encouraged to avoid conflict to keep the peace. She does not verbalize to Travis that he makes her feel like an inconvenience when he hides their relationship. Over the course of the novel, Lin learns how relationships take effort to cultivate and develop, and it is impossible to have a genuine relationship if she hides how she really is feeling. This is shown when she goes on a road trip with her friend, Gua, to leave Ohio for better opportunities and they get on each other’s nerves. As they are screaming at each other, Gua admits, “I need your help [to survive the roadtrip]. I can’t do this alone.” At this moment, even though Lin is angry for being put in this situation, she is able to empathize as she “could see the change in Gua” and “felt suddenly sorry for her.” Lin undergoes this emotional growth, and Tam-Claiborne does a great job conveying this journey in the novel.
There are not enough words to convey how much I enjoyed this book. I was able to meet Tam-Claiborne in April to tell him so, and he kindly inscribed my copy of his book, “May you find home here.” Like Liz and Lin and other Asian/Americans, I am navigating a world in which I do not fully belong. In the panel on haunting at Get Lit! Festival in Spokane, WA that I attended featuring Tam-Claiborne, he stated, “We have long been reckoning with ideas of belonging, identity, diaspora, and home, but we have not been able to fully answer the questions that come along with these concepts. Instead of resisting these incomplete answers, we should embody them in our writing.” I appreciated how Tam-Claiborne evokes the liminal space we occupy and imbues this fragmentary feeling into his characters to humanize them as they search for home. I also hope to find home here as well.
Justine Trinh is an English literature Ph.D. student at Washington State University. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine with B.A.s in Asian American studies and classical civilizations and a B.S. in mathematics. She then went on to earn her M.A. in Asian American studies, making her the first student to graduate from UCI Asian American Studies’ 4+1 B.A./M.A. program. Her research interests include Asian American literature, critical refugee studies, family and trauma, and forced departure and disownment.