Journal Article

The Migrant Body's Work

Rifkind, Candida

2020

Overview

There is a tenderness to Thammavongsa's descriptions of the smelly, sore, sexualized, labouring, at once excessive and lacking racialized migrant body that could be in productive dialogue with Adele Wiseman's highly embodied immigrant Jewish Winnipeg characters in Crackpot (1974), Dionne Brand's precarious Caribbean migrant women navigating Toronto in Sans Souci and Other Stories (1988), or the diverse labouring migrant characters in Mariam Pirbhai's Outside People and Other Stories (2017). [...]Raymond could never win this round, and the story ends with a heartbreaking image of him and his sister sitting in her car, windows open, listening to the sounds of a family barbeque and children giggling, the soundtrack of middle-class innocence \"like a far distant thing, a thing that happened only to other people\" (71). The Laotian women working in a chicken processing plant think that nose jobs, hairdos, and glamorous clothing might get them promoted to the front office by their sexual predator of a boss.

• Publisher: The University of British Columbia - Canadian Literature,Pacific Affairs. The University of British Columbia
• Subject: Alien labor / Asian literature / Canadian literature / Children / Economic aspects / Embodiment / Immigrants / Immigration / Literary characters / Literary criticism / Literary devices / Migrant workers / Migrants / Narrative techniques / Narrative theme / Poets / Portrayals / Refugees, Asian / Social aspects / Thammavongsa, Souvankham / Thammavongsa, Souvankham (1978-) / Works