Content Warning: This section includes discussion of anti-Chinese xenophobia, anti-immigrant biases, bullying, abuse, child loss, and racism.

Ten-year-old Lina Gao flies to Los Angeles from Beijing. Six weeks before, on a phone call with her mother, Lina stated her desire to join her parents and 7-year-old sister, Millie, in California. Her parents agreed to bring Lina from China, where they left her five years before with her grandparents, Lao Lao and Lao Ye. Since her grandfather, Lao Ye, passed away the previous year, Lina helped care for Lao Lao by helping with chores and relaying doctors’ instructions. She realizes her choice to leave China necessitated Lao Lao’s move to a retirement home. Lina feels guilt for leaving Lao Lao but is excited to see her parents and sister and live in the US, where she will not feel pressure to curtail her creativity. She works on a drawing of Lao Lao in her sketchbook and promises aloud to “bring [her] over” to live with them too (5).

An escort leads Lina through customs. Lina brags about her family, sharing tidbits she memorized from their letters: Her father is a microbiologist, and her mother works in a salon; they live in a two-story home 40 miles from Los Angeles.