Wren’s Reviews > The Translator's Daughter: A Memoir > Status Update

“I am the eternal daughter, destined to go back and forth between my husband in California and my parents in Taiwan, between the life consciously chosen and the collective unconscious that claims me, an unbreakable thread connecting me to my ancestors. I live in a constant state of longing to be reunited with Demeter-my mother, motherland, mother tongue. My life is defined by this rupture.”

“I have bizarre sensation of going forward in linear time yet backward in consciousness, reaching for a distant, earlier version of myself that once felt at home here.”

It’s interesting that there are a few Asian American memoirs whose titles are focused not on the author but their parents. “Manicurist’s Daughter”, “Translator’s Daughter”.

“I wasn’t used to hearing my parents fight; when they did it was usually in Taiwanese. I wondered if they were speaking English only because I was there.”
The whole switch to the commonly understood language in the group is too real

“I lost my native tongue, but I gained freedom of speech.”