Joy is the first-grader protagonist of “How to Pronounce Knife,” which comprises snapshots of her life as a Laotian immigrant in an unnamed country; she is not named until later in the short story. She contrasts with her classmates, in that she is direct and self-aware for a child. Joy is proud and protective of her family’s customs, while also accepting new norms. Being young, language and reading are paramount to her sense of being and belonging; she speaks both Lao and English, but sometimes struggles to read English. Joy does not falter in the face of bullying and other challenges, balancing two worlds—those of home and school—with strength. She defends her father’s mispronunciation of the word “knife” and her mother’s meals, often prepared with a knife—lending the short story its title. Like Miss Choi’s gifted puzzle of a plane in flight, Joy embodies her namesake and family’s future, the freedom to explore the unknown.

Joy’s unnamed father is a hard worker, his job at a print shop leaving him smelling like paint thinner. He himself used to paint for leisure—indicated by a small painting of a bridge in the family’s apartment—but no longer does. His hobby and literacy hint at him having had some form of education in the past, a past the family is still holding onto.