The Last Story Of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim
“It was obvious how much they depend on each other for---food, shelter, a sense of identity in this world---and how much Margot had resented that.”
In “The Last Story Of Mina Lee” written by Nancy Jooyoun Kim I see a theme I could relate to more than I realized, being ashamed of how/where you grew up. Though the author takes it a step further and often felt alienated from the world around her due to her mother and her being Korean. Margot born in America has known two sides of the coin. The world she lives in and the world that is presented as the “American Life”. Her mother, a Korean immigrant who spoke at best-broken English lived within what would be considered impoverished means. The gap between mother and daughter is evident from the beginning when Margot begins reminiscing on her childhood and even more as the narrative switches to a young Mina navigating her way through a new country and a new life. We find that Margot kept almost a deliberate wall between her mother and herself by refusing to learn Korean. In many ways this speaks a lot about how the American dream is portrayed. Margot states in one line:
“Her mother was too heavy with history, with sadness--unspoken and unexplained.”
Mina had a hard life before and after she came to America. Margot hints at this talking of orphanages and loss of family. Mina has been through a lot and when she first comes to America she is fresh with the pain of losing her daughter and her husband. These hardships unsettle Margot and the best reason I can find is because the so-called ideal life in America is about the bright side. All happiness and rainbows. Sort of a rose colored glasses view. Margot wants this more than the air she breathes, to fit in and to be a part of this world. Not truly realizing that it’s not how everyone lives. When Margot finds her mother dead in their old apartment after going to check on her because she wasn’t answering her phone she is understandably devastated. Even despite this we still see the resentment towards the way of life, the poverty and dirtiness of everything in her mother’s life. All the things Margot left behind. We see the anger she feels because she doesn’t understand why her mother didn’t want to leave it like her.
When we get a better look into Mina’s life through her point of view we see a woman who struggled with loss on so many levels. Beginning at a young age with her parents, progressing to her husband and daughter and later to the loss of her business. Mina loses her shop in the LA Riots and is forced to instead take up shop at swap meet in a largely Latino based area where the language and cultural barriers bring on everyday hardships as she struggles to provide as a single mother to Margot. She worked for what she had and held tightly to it, the small and fragile foundation she’d managed to build for herself and Margot. She appears to try to shield her daughter from the weight of day to day living and filters everything keeping the stressful and hard bits inside bearing the weight of them alone. Which is how Mina seemed to spend the rest of her life in America, alone and in her own way alienated even from her own daughter.
As Margot begins to shift through what her mother left behind she begins to uncover questions. Who was the woman that raised her. Margot knew her mother as a woman who lived a simple life, describing her to an officer as “boring.” What she finds indicates there was another side her mother never showed not even to the one person she was considered close to. This leads Margot on a search to find out what really happened the night her mother died. Along the way she uncovers people from her mother’s past, some Margot spent her early years around but was unable to recall.
The way Kim interwins Margot and Mina’s story is well done. Shifting from the present narrative to the past. We find Margot herself on a journey she never expected to be on, learning who her mother truly was. Then Mina a fish out of water alone, attempting to build a new life and leave behind the pain of her former. Kim pulls back the curtain giving an uncensored view of what it means to be an immigrant in America. What it means to be the American born daughter of an immigrant. How these two different sides contrast each other. But also how they both are the same. Mina and Margot both felt like outcasts and looked down on. Mina for being a single mother and a Korean immigrant. Margot for being stuck in between two worlds, the American one and the Korean one. Ashamed for so long and resentful even. Kim paints a story of hardship, of growth and of the relationship between a mother and daughter.
I’ve only scratched the surface of the subjects this story touches on, the depth of the plot. I simply can’t do it justice, and I don’t want to give too much away. You can pick up this amazing book below. It is a must read.
The Last Song Of Mina Lee
By Nancy Jooyoun Kim
384 pages. 2020
About Nena Orcutt
Nena Orcutt is an aspiring author, who thinks too much, Listens to a lot of music. Needs coffee to function. Who thinks Bukowski was a wise man and Hemingway was a genius. And feels romance isn’t dead. She is working on her debut novel “The Crow and The Butterfly” Making her home in Music City she’s ready to conquer the writing world and leave her mark.
