By Justine Trinh
We inherit many things from our parents, grandparents, and beyond. I myself inherited my mother’s freckles and my father’s eyes. Thank goodness I did not get my grandfather’s distinctive cherry tomato nose. However, we inherit more than physical attributes—we also inherit trauma. In a 2013 study looking at epigenetics, which refers to heritable traits that happen without changing someone’s DNA sequence, scientists trained mice to fear the scent of cherry blossom. It was reported that the mice’s offspring had an aversion to the same scent despite never encountering it. Although the idea of epigenetics has existed since the 1990s in biology, this study became the basis of how researchers approached inherited trauma. Jamie Ford tackles the concept of epigenetics in his novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy.
As the former Washington poet laureate, Dorothy Moy is struggling. Her job contract was not renewed, she is isolated from her friends, and her white partner, Louis, is not understanding of her mental health struggles and often minimizes them, calling her mental health days “a lack of wealth day.” Dorothy channels her mental health struggles into her poetry, but once her five-year-old daughter, Annabel, starts exhibiting similar behaviors such as dissociative episodes, Dorothy decides it is time to seek help. In an attempt to break the cycle of pain and prevent Annabel from going through the same debilitating depression, Dorothy decides to undergo epigenetic treatments to help mitigate this inherited trauma. Through these treatments, she becomes acquainted with Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman in America; Lai King Moy, a girl quarantined during the Spanish flu pandemic in San Francisco; Zoe Moy, a student in England; Faye Moy, a nurse during World War II; and Greta Moy, a tech executive. Although the relationship between these women are initially obscured, the audience is able to piece together that all these women directly descend from Afong, forming a materilineal family lineage.
I really enjoyed how Ford used epigenetics to show the lineage of trauma. Dorothy is unaware of her ancestors such as Zoe Moy, who is Dorothy’s grandmother, yet the audience can see echoes of Zoe in Dorothy. Similarly, there are echoes of Dorothy’s mother, Greta, in Dorothy. Even when Dorothy knows pieces of her mother’s story that have been passed down to her, she is unaware of the whole story or how much it affects her. Greta meets the love of her life, and when he leaves her, she spends her whole life trying to find love again. Unfortunately, she is never able to. This results in Dorothy settling with Louis even though they are incompatible, and she does not truly love him. Yet, she chooses to stay to give Annabel the stable home that Greta was unable to provide for her. Similarly, we are all like Afong Moy’s daughters because we inherited these unknown traumas of our ancestors, and this affects us in ways we do not always know.
Ford also creates a fictionalized version of Afong Moy, who is a real historical figure. Her disappearance in 1850 allowed Ford to speculate about what happened to her and give her a fictionalized descendant line. As the first known Chinese female immigrant in the United States, Moy was the first Chinese person many Americans interacted with before Chinese exclusion, and these encounters influenced how Chinese/Asian women and culture were perceived. Moy was exhibited as an exotic curiosity with much attention being placed on her clothes, language, and “little feet,” which were the results of foot binding. The exhibition of her feet were used by American society to portray Chinese culture as inhumane and “culturally backwards.” These assumptions of Asian culture being “culturally backwards” continue to this day and affect Asian Americans.
I also appreciated the discussion of motherhood as Louis and his mother, Louise, expect Dorothy to be the perfect mother to Annabel. This expectation is impossible and based in Western heteronormative ideals, and when she fails to meet their standards, they blame it on how her Chinese/Asian mother raised her, ignoring the fact both Greta and Dorothy were raised in the United States. Louis and Louise attribute her mental health struggles and inherited trauma onto Dorothy’s Asian qualities. They believe they can protect Annabel from Dorothy’s inherit moral “failings” because Annabel is white passing and Dorothy is not. Dorothy will never be good enough, not through lack of trying as she goes through the epigenetic treatments for her daughter, but rather because of her race.
At first, the multiple point-of-view shifts confused me because they did not seem connected and were short snapshots of these women’s lives. I knew that they were related to one another, but the vignettes only provided me a short peek into their lives. However, once I reached Part 2 after Dorothy undergoes the epigenetic treatments, these snapshots were expanded to show a clearer picture of the traumatic events these women experienced and how they were related to one another. This literary choice reflects how people come to understand their familial past. People are often told stories about their grandparents or great grandparents, but these stories are brief recollections of a person’s life. It is up to those who come after them to put these pieces together to form a more complete picture.
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is a fascinating read that blends together trauma and genealogy, and Ford crafts an interwoven narrative that illuminates how we are all affected by our familial past. Like most people, each of Ford’s characters are nuanced and flawed as they do not always make the best decisions while navigating traumatic events to survive. While these events are never discussed in detail with the generation that follows, the aftereffects are felt generations later. Ford’s work reminds us that although we might never know what truly happened to our ancestors and what they experienced, we inherit their traumas. While it is sometimes hard to confront what truly happened, like Dorothy, we must break the cycle before it engulfs us and envelops the next generation.
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.