Emily DeGarie, “We-Narration and Racial Dynamics in Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea”
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee is a novel centered on class and racial divisions. Set in a dystopian futuristic America, people are separated into three classes: the Charters, where the wealthy elite live and prosper; labor colonies composed of immigrants imported into America for the express purpose of producing goods for the Charters; and the counties, the unwalled remnants of former society where the majority live and are forced to survive off what few resources are available to them. The story follows Fan, a sixteen-year-old fish tank diver from the labor colony of B-Mor as she leaves her sheltered home on a journey in search of her boyfriend, Reg, who has been taken by the Charters and subjected to experimentation because he is free of the C-illnesses that affect every adult and lead to an inescapable early death.
Much of the novel follows Fan as she moves through the worlds of the counties and the Charters, but her story is told in the first-person plural through the point of view of B-Mor. Interspersed with the telling of Fan’s journey is the story of B-Mor: their arrival in the former city of Baltimore, their skirmishes with the “natives” who inhabited the city before them, their sense of pride in the work they perform, and their growing restlessness with the precarious position they hold in this world, forever depending on the Charters for survival even as they are exploited by them. Although it initially seems as though the collective of B-Mor is the narrator of this tale, contradictions between what the narrator insists is true and the events that they describe reveal the splintering of a community in crisis. The we-narration emphasizes this splintering, allowing for a better understanding of the complex racial dynamics in On Such a Full Sea, namely, how the mostly white Charters have exploited B-Mor by forcing them to adhere to stereotypes that exemplify the “model minority” to ensure their survival, how this in turn causes B-Mor to discriminate against the mixed-race members of their own community, and how B-Mor’s reckoning with the permeation of racial bias in their community allows them to move forward as a more unified group.
One of the most significant aspects of we-narration is that it allows for an interplay between who is included in the “we” and who is not. In “We-Narratives: The Distinctiveness of Collective Narration,” Natalya Bekhta states that “A collective agency of the we-narrator […] allows […] for a creation of ‘us vs. outsiders’ dynamic” (175). Similarly, Delphine Munos states in “We-Narration in Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea” that we-narrations can “[expose] the essentializing perceptions undergirding the maintenance of clear-cut boundaries between we-groups and they-groups” (69). That is to say, the “we” of the first-person plural is significant not just because of who it includes, but because of who it excludes as well. Through this perspective, it becomes clear that although the we-narrator of On Such a Full Sea may at first appear to embody the entire collective of B-Mor, they represent a much smaller group who is pushing back against the growing rebellious faction that is overtaking B-Mor after Fan’s departure and attempting to change the way of life B-Mor has known for over a century.
The we-narrator makes their own separation from the greater collective of B-Mor known throughout the novel as they refer to specificities that simply cannot be representative of all of B-Mor. At one point, for example, they identify a specific location where they live, referring to an event occurring “not just in the vicinity of the food hall, or way down the block, or in a slightly down-in-the-mouth section of West B-Mor, but perhaps close enough to be right here in our household” (Lee 220; emphasis added). In this statement, they locate themselves as living in a part of B-Mor other than the West neighborhood and also identify themselves as belonging to a specific household. They discuss their ancestry, stating, “we ourselves derive from two of the first generations of growers,” tracing their bloodline back to two specific “original” families who were present when B-Mor was initially formed (Lee 8). At times, they refer to themselves as separate from others in B-Mor, such as when they wonder, “did more than a few make a point of shoving their envelopes into the slot with an extra-hard pat? Did we” (Lee 34)? Again and again the we-narrator defines themselves in a more specific way than can be represented by the references to sub-groups that often occurs in we-narration. As Bekhta notes, “collective self-reference is often specified with third-person references to individuals, to ‘some of us’—or outsiders—which, nevertheless, contribute to creating a sense of community” (173). In other words, the we-narrator, while speaking as a collective, can still refer to individuals within itself that make up the whole. The we-narrator of On Such a Full Sea often does this, such as when they say, “not a one of us,” “most of us agreed,” or “the rest of us” (Lee 34, 36, 60). However, because they go beyond this self-referentiality often and refer to “us” as a smaller part of the whole, it is clear that they are a sub-group in B-Mor, and not the entirety of B-Mor. A moment that encapsulates this perfectly is when they say, “She left via the back gate of the yard with those who had finished eating, leaving us to wonder what she was talking about” (Lee 35). If the we-narrator were all of B-Mor, they would have been more likely to say “with those of us who had finished eating, leaving the rest of us to wonder.” Instead, “us” is the entire group that makes up the narrator, and those who had finished eating are not a part of this group.
Although the narrator has differentiated themselves as just a faction of B-Mor, critics often identify the narrator as the voice of all B-Mors, which is not surprising because the we-narrator often speaks as though they are, in fact, representative of the entire labor colony. In her analysis of the novel, Bekhta understands the we-narrator as all of B-Mor, stating that “the we-reference is, by its deictic nature, ambiguous and covers at any one time either an unidentified part of the community or its totality” (224). Munos, too, draws this conclusion, speaking of the narrator as “the collective we of the B-Mor workers” (72–73). It is not by mistake that the we-narrator attempts to speak for the whole in this manner because their goal, at least at the beginning of the novel, is to preserve and push a certain narrative of who B-Mor has historically been. Soon after Reg disappears and Fan leaves, B-Mor finds itself in a particularly precarious position that threatens its existence. B-Mor is a labor colony; its original occupants were brought over from New China specifically to produce food for the Charters, and this is what they and their descendants have done for over 150 years. The we-narrator discusses this arrangement, stating, “We provide pristine, beautiful fish and vegetables, and in return we enjoy estimable housing and schooling, technical training and health care, and a salary” (Lee 113). In turn for providing food to the Charters, they are ensured a place to live, an education, and other benefits that are not available in the counties.
In addition to this, they make it a point to note that the community is privy to “indoor gymnasiums and pools, and the subterranean mall busy with shops and game parlors and eateries” that provide comfortable places to spend time away from the harsh climate outdoors, as well as an “atmosphere of seasonally perfumed, filtered air and the honey-hued halo lighting and the constantly updated mood-enhancing music,” that make their living situation more pleasant (Lee 13, 14). In sum, by adhering to the strict standards and rules set out by the Directorate, an authoritative board in the Charters who ensures B-Mor’s compliance, B-Mor is able to maintain what they believe to be a comparatively safer and healthier lifestyle than the people who live in the counties.
This is why, when “rumors [arise] of a shift in demand for our goods in the Charter villages,” and they experience “a precipitous drop in sales,” it is cause for alarm in B-Mor (Lee 113, 119). In reaction to this existential threat to their way of life, many B-Mors begin to act out in ways that they otherwise would not have, such as a “frenzy of littering” that occurs, where mobs of B-Mors throw food and trash into their parks’ decorative fish ponds; or the physical abuse they inflict on each other, with people sustaining “bruises and scratches and sometimes outright swellings and suppurations” at the hands of their neighbors and kin (Lee 109, 219). These reactions are indicative of a growing dissatisfaction with the way of life B-Mor has adhered to for over 150 years, a life in which there is no upward mobility, little control over their environment, and a slowly eroding quality of life as the Directorate whittles down the few advantages they offer to B-Mor in return for their fish and vegetables. The healthcare B-Mors receive, once unlimited, now has “so many new rules that make it all very complicated,” and while B-Mor children still have the opportunity to join a Charter by scoring well enough on their Exams, they are “now having to test in their top 1.25 percent instead of the 2 percent before” (Lee 60, 338). Throughout all this dissatisfaction is the story of Fan, told and retold throughout B-Mor, a type of communal story-building in which all their hopes and aspirations for themselves come to fruition in the character of Fan.
After all, the story is not a true telling of what Fan experiences once she leaves B-Mor’s walls; the we-narrator admits that after the last recording of Fan walking away, “the official record ends there” (Lee 38). But the idea of surviving and making something for oneself outside of B-Mor, like they believe Fan has done, takes hold in some B-Mors, and Fan and Reg become symbolic of this movement to reject the Directorate, with the “freshly painted portraits of Fan and Reg on the side of a row house or fence, hastily done in the night,” being “immediately paint[ed] over before anyone from the directorate can notice” (Lee 17). Even as one faction of B-Mor works to spread the seeds of rebellion through these murals, another covers it up in an attempt to maintain the status quo. It is this divide in B-Mor between those who wish to change or leave the community and those who believe that the safest path forward is to continue living exactly the way they have done for so many years that sets the backdrop for the novel, with the we-narrator initially firmly on the side of the latter group. With the existence of B-Mor already threatened by fewer food sales, the we-narrator sees the acts of rebellion and protest as further endangering their colony, potentially causing them to be dropped by the Charters entirely, leaving them to fend for themselves in the counties, where many of them will most likely die. The goal of the we-narrator in telling B-Mor’s story is to encourage the dissenters to remember how dangerous it is outside and how much comparative safety and privilege they still have, even with some of the Directorate’s recent changes. Over and over throughout the novel, they identify themselves as striving to do this, stating:
There are times we need to remind everyone of those conditions, especially people like Fan’s boosters . . . We need to remind all boosters, agitators, wonderers, wishers, of what it was like here when the originals landed . . . it’s our responsibility to educate them to the idea that romancing the unknown is attended by myriad possibilities, too, shepherding them through those heady periods of urge and instinct when they think they can soar, and deliver them, we hope whole, to a place where perspective begins to reign, where they know that the groggy old bear at the zoo will instantly wake the moment you step inside the cage. (Lee 16, 17, 50)
By speaking as though they are all of B-Mor, they are hoping to foster a return to unity, saying, essentially, we are B-Mor, and those who do not share our view are simply not who we are.
This we-narrator of B-Mor who rejects individuality and espouses a return to collectivism reflects the consciousness of a people who have learned to embrace the idea of the model minority, which has been foisted on them by the Directorate through B-Mor’s education system and systemic fearmongering that has roots to the very beginnings of B-Mor. They state that “the originals were brought in en masse for a strict purpose but with their work- and family-centric culture intact, such that they would not only endure and eventually profit the seed investors but also prosper in a manner that would be perpetually regenerative,” not unlike the very fish that B-Mor tends to so carefully (Lee 22). In other words, it is because of their work- and family-centric culture that they were even given the opportunity to live in B-Mor, and their focus on hard work and the collectivism of the community is why they continue to have value to the Charters.
However, what they fail to realize is the many ways that they have been manipulated into valuing these qualities above all else and how this contributes to the Charters’ exploitation of them. In “Instrumental Commodification and the Model Minority,” Jeshua Enriquez comments on this manipulation of B-Mor, stating that “the Directorate fosters community traits it finds useful, such as family dedication and work ethic, by rewarding those characteristics with protection and resources in a typical manifestation of model minority ideation” (177). Not only does the Directorate encourage the community traits noted by Enriquez by continuing to protect B-Mor and provide it with resources, but they indoctrinate them into the mindset that these traits are most valuable through the B-Mor educational system. The we-narrator refers to their childhood schooling often, explaining how they know that B-Mor is so safe “because it’s central to our schooling, a primary unit of our studies devoted to the history of B-Mor and the conditions that made it possible” (Lee 16). This schooling lasts only seven years, and yet a large portion of it is saved for lessons in B-Mor’s history that push only the narrative the Directorate wishes to tell. The we-narrator expounds on some of this history, recalling the stories they “studied in school or watched vids of at the historical museum, the oft-documented stuff about how by dint of their collective will and the discipline of their leaders in keeping everyone focused on the job the originals transformed the desperate nothingness about them” (Lee 79). Having been told only this narrative of their history since their youth, the B-Mors have little other experience to contradict what they have been told, and so they latch onto the qualities of collective will, discipline, and hard work, as well as the warnings about the inhospitable environment outside their walls, and they become the model worker for the Charters, both efficient and unwilling to jeopardize their safety by pushing back against authority.
The model minority ideation mentioned by Enriquez is one that has parallels to modern-day stereotypes about Asian Americans which homogenize the disparate and diverse experiences of Asian people and instead characterizes the entire ethnicity as inherently embodying traits that lend themselves toward economic success. The generally positive descriptors of these traits— “efficient,” “hardworking,” “family-centric”—make the model minority stereotype seem less insidious than it actually is, but in reality, it is limiting, confining people to an identity that only reflects those specific traits and no others, with those who do not fit the mold often facing rejection and mockery. This limited identity is reflected in the we-narrator’s inability to conceive of themselves as something more than what they have been told to be. They readily admit that “the reach of our thoughts has a near ceiling . . . It’s still tethered to the universe of what we know, and as wild as our dreams might be, we can’t help but read them with the same grounded circumspection that guided our forebears when they mapped out our walls” (Lee 127). When all that they know is hard work, discipline, and a precarious safety dependent on economic production, it is difficult for them to break free from the mindset that these qualities matter above all else, even as they begin to recognize that the Charters are exploiting them for their labor. The use of the first-person plural helps to emphasize the stereotype of sameness that is promoted by the idea of the model minority; the we-narrative prevents any identification of the individuals who make up that “we.” Instead, they are easily presumed to be identical in terms of their experiences, thoughts, actions, and desires. In the we-narrator’s mind, there is little use to individuality in their society; at one point they wonder if “being an ‘individual’ makes a difference anymore. That it can matter at all. And if not, whether we in fact care” (Lee 3). To them, there is no worth in individualism outside the collective because individualism is not conducive to their continued safety. As Bekhta states, “The plurality of the narrator matters in that it contributes to the novel’s implications of the group as offering security in the face of precarity and fear, often through anonymity” (175). With the drop in fish sales and the numerous members of the community acting out, B-Mor finds itself in just the kind of precarity and fear that encourages them to find comfort and security in clinging to collectivism.
B-Mor does, at one point, safely examine their commodified existence from a distance through the story of Fan when she meets another type of collective, Miss Cathy’s Girls, in the Charters. The Girls are young women who are kept by Miss Cathy as though they are her pets or playthings, living out their existence in a suite adjoining Miss Cathy’s bedroom, never allowed to leave. Unlike the B-Mors’ conscription into the model minority, the Girls embody instead a type of kawaii—cutesy—anime girl, a role which is just as limiting. Each of the Girls has had their eyes altered to look like anime characters’ eyes, “huge and shaped in the same way, half-moons set on the straight side, like band shells but darkened, their pupils being brown” (Lee 242). They do this of their own accord because of their desire to imitate anime and because the popular culture they consume demands conformity to a specific archetype. Not only have they had their bodies physically altered to make themselves more exaggeratedly Asian, but their manner is one that plays into the doll-like existence Miss Cathy has forced upon them, “giggling . . . shoulders scrunched, their high pitch cutesy and saccharine” (Lee 242). Their individuality has been so stripped from them that they no longer have names, instead assigned a number representative of the order in which they arrived at Miss Cathy’s home. They do not consider themselves to be people in their own right; they are simply Miss Cathy’s possessions, much as B-Mor means nothing to the Directorate and the Charters beyond their ability to provide them with food. In other words, the Girls and B-Mor exist not for themselves, but only to serve the purposes of those who exploit them. Just as B-Mor perceives the Directorate and Charters as saving them from the dangers of the counties, the Girls see Miss Cathy as their savior and protector who keeps them safe from the sexual advances of Miss Cathy’s husband, Mister Leo.
However, in both instances, this so-called protection prevents B-Mor and the Girls from achieving their full potential. What Fan sees in the Girls are the same issues that persist in the we-narrator and in much of B-Mor: they are “too fragile as individuals to endure any change or trauma like a sundering of their group” (Lee 258). In the same way that the Girls are held back by their adherence to the anime girl role, the we-narrator is held back by their fear of no longer being part of a collective, of lacking safety in numbers. In one instance, the Girls, knowing that Four and Five are deathly ill rooms away, pretend that everything is fine as they ‘play’ with Miss Cathy; the we-narrator recognizes themselves in this moment, stating, “Perhaps in this regard we B-Mors . . . are merely the Girls writ large” (Lee 286). After all, B-Mor, too, pretends that everything is fine even as the few benefits they receive from the Directorate are whittled away and people are removed from the colony with little to no explanation. The we-narrator’s growing awareness of the way the Charters have exploited their mindset has, as Munos states, “gradually shift[ed] the terrain of analysis to the psychic costs as well as to the conditions of emergence—and maintenance—of such exemplarity” (72). In other words, as the we-narrator becomes more aware of their own subjugation and acceptance of the model minority role, it becomes ever clearer how much mental load the maintenance of this collective mindset has cost them. It both prevents them from demanding better conditions for themselves from the Charters and denies them the ability to conceive of a way of living that does not commodify their existence.
The unspoken implication of the phrase “model minority” is that it requires a non-model minority—a problem minority—who have the opposite traits of the model minority; they are lazy where the model minority is hardworking, and selfish where the model minority is community-focused. These negative traits, which are also seen as inherent to their race, imply that the problem minority is complicit in their own lack of economic success. As Munos states, “the model minority stereotype is often used to naturalize the failure of other racialized communities—specifically African Americans—to achieve the American Dream” (70). In On Such a Full Sea, this dynamic between the model minority and the “problem” minority drives a wedge between the so-called pureblood B-Mors, who are direct descendants of the New China immigrants, and those of mixed race whose New China ancestors comingled with the “native” people living in B-Mor—then Baltimore—before their arrival (Lee 80). The we-narration throughout the novel reveals just how deep the separation is between the B-Mors of fully Asian descent and those of mixed race.
Although the group making up the we-narrator still remains, to a degree, ambiguous, it is more than certain that if there is one faction of B-Mor above all others who they definitely consider part of the out-group, it is those in the community who are mixed race. They often muse on bloodlines, even commenting how it is “funny that Reg should end up being the one who was so cellularly pure,” as though his African heritage makes him, somehow, less pure (Lee 76). The we-narrator is not alone in considering B-Mors of mixed race less than. They state, “there was a time – not as long ago as one would like to think—when people of Reg’s appearance would have been talked about openly, right in their faces, as if they didn’t have eyes or ears,” comments like, “they can still breathe through such flat little noses” (Lee 77–78). Throughout the entire community, it is those of mixed-race who are doubly subjugated, both by the Directorate, who takes advantage of their labor, and by the rest of B-Mor, who, as Hee-Jung Joo states in “The Asian (as) Robot: Queer Inhumans in the Works of Margaret Rhee, Greg Pak, and Chang-Rae Lee,” recognize that “the success of B-Mor as a labor colony depends on the acceptance of this anti-‘indigenous’ sentiment” (20). Because B-Mor’s entire conception rests on the idea that they were specifically chosen for their culture’s work-ethic and collectivism, the presence of an out-group, especially one that is physically identifiable, reminds them of their supposed superiority.
In this way, the Charters and B-Mor are, as Joo notes, “linked together by anti-Blackness, by Asians’ relationality to ‘un-model’ minorities (18).” This history of anti-blackness stretches back to the first days of B-Mor, when the people who lived in Baltimore, “these descendants of nineteenth-century African slaves and twentieth-century laborers from Central America and even bands of twenty-first-century urban-nostalgics,” were forcibly displaced from their homes to make way for the colony of B-Mor (Lee 21). Since that time, the Directorate has been complicit in ensuring that racial tensions continue in the community, such as through B-Mor’s education system. The we-narrator shows contempt for the displaced people, thinking of them in negative terms: “The Parkies! we sneered, which is how they were identified in our history class materials” (Lee 81). The Directorate regulates all aspects of B-Mor life, including their education, and the presence of a dismissive and derogatory nickname for the displaced ‘natives’ in history class fosters the ongoing discrimination against B-Mors of mixed race. The Directorate will also, at certain points, remind B-Mor of the racial tensions, such as a time the we-narrator recalls in B-Mor’s past when, for no apparent reason, the Directorate summoned only certain people—those of mixed race—to be tested for liver disease at a point when, according to the we-narrator, “it was casually known who might be mixed, but to that point it had never been officially designated” (Lee 83). This official designation by the Directorate leads to a handful of mixed race B-Mors leaving because of the increased scrutiny and discrimination it caused, and although the we-narrator claims that B-Mors now live in relative harmony and try not to dwell on their racial differences, they admit that after the Directorate’s posting, “there were more tussles and even outright fights at school, when before there had hardly been any,” and that “more mixed clans were more regularly pairing off,” and that it was a well-know but unspoken rule that those with “some part of Reg’s native line can be very subtly or unwittingly lodged in the lee of prime conditions” (Lee 86, 126). Perhaps Fan, pregnant with Reg’s child, also left because she knew, just as the we-narrator has come to recognize, that the opportunities for a mixed-race child in B-Mor were not necessarily better than those that might be available outside of the colony’s walls and chose to leave of her own accord rather than see her child suffer such discrimination.
Clearly, as much as the we-narrator likes to think otherwise, B-Mor’s history of racial discrimination against black and Hispanic heritages has not been so easy to shake. The fact that the we-narrator still so clearly refers to them in a way that designates them as ‘other’ is inherently indicative of that. Some of this discrimination may be because they recognize, although they do not want to admit, as Enriquez states, that the Directorate’s “attitude towards the immigrated Asian community was custodial, obliging, and supportive in order to harness benefits for social and economic gain, but settlements of other races were perceived as a nuisance or a threat” (179). Acknowledging this would force them to admit that it is not through their work-ethic and collective identity that they have succeeded, but because they were provided with the resources to succeed, and as the we-narrator recalls their Uncle Kellen telling them, perhaps the indigenous population of B-Mor “might have improved itself if given the opportunity our originals had to retool and create a B-Mor of their own” (80). The we-narration initially continues to lend itself to the separation of “we” from the mixed-race B-Mors after Fan’s departure in the way that they begin to fetishize African features after Reg and Fan’s departures from the community.
What was once a means for discrimination has, overnight, become desirable now that one member of their community, Fan, has left B-Mor because of her love for one of its mixed-race members. The we-narrator comments on Reg’s physical features repeatedly, such as his “beautiful” and “amazing” skin, or his “amazing head of Afro-type hair” (Lee 7, 71, 76). The rest of B-Mor now wish to exhibit those African features, with “young men [visiting] the ladies’ salons to have their hair teased wildly à la Reg,” and “a companion run by both sexes on bronzers at the pharmacy” (Lee 77). While this appropriation of black features is inherently problematic, once the frenzy of Fan and Reg supporters dies down, a real change does seem to overcome the community, and the we-narrator is able to admit that many of the issues in their community were caused by their acceptance of the model minority role and its predication on their superiority to B-Mors of mixed race. They resolve to be better, “to preserve the good picture of [Fan and Reg] in our minds no matter how contrary to the designs of the directorate it might be,” and in doing so they become a more unified group (Lee 120). This unification is reflected in the last few portions of we-narration toward the end of the novel. Rather than focusing on the differences between the subgroups in B-Mor, the collective states that they have “lashed ourselves together, we are cheek by jowl but now in an entirely different way” (Lee 357). It is not so easy now to differentiate the we-narrator from the rest of B-Mor, nor do they focus as much on racial tensions; if anything, the racial tensions appear to have ceased entirely, and B-Mor has reached a new, albeit tentative, understanding of themselves as a group. At the end, B-Mor appears to be, for the first time, a true collective that is moving into the future together. They are changed, and because of that, they let go of their complicated history and Fan, ready to move forward as a new being who knows that “we’ll find a way” (Lee 407).
The we-narration in On Such a Full Sea is the novel’s most prominent literary technique, and it allows for a better understanding of B-Mor’s transformation throughout the story. The initial we-narrator is clearly a subgroup of B-Mor and is not representative of the entire community. They refer at varying times to their own specific family and clan, or to the opinions and beliefs that they share but that other members of B-Mor are not privy to. Although they do often speak as though they are representative of B-Mor, it is only because they fear a complete dissolution of their community if they do not conform to the rules and expectations of the Directorate, a dissolution which would force them to fend for themselves and potentially perish in the counties.
We-narration also helps to emphasize the role of the model minority in the history of B-Mor, and how the Directorate has purposefully fostered the qualities that make B-Mor more easily exploitable, such as an emphasis on hard work as a way of life and collectivism instead of individuality. The model minority mindset has been the cause of racial division in B-Mor since its inception, with the Asian immigrants displacing and discriminating against the Black and Hispanic communities that occurred the city of Baltimore before it was coopted by the Directorate to become B-Mor. Although these displaced peoples eventually cohabited with the B-Mors and created generations of mixed-race B-Mors, their descendants always occupied a lower tier in B-Mor society, subject to discrimination, which the Directorate often encouraged as a way to sow the seeds of division within the community and to keep it in check. However, Reg’s disappearance and Fan’s departure from B-Mor force a reckoning of this complicated racial history, and by the end of the novel, the we-narrator no longer distinguishes the racial subgroups in their make-up, and the “we” has truly become all of B-Mor instead of just a faction within it. It is through we-narration that it becomes clear that the we-narrator does not speak for B-Mor writ large; it is through we-narration that B-Mor recognizes their acceptance of the model minority role and the racial divisions this has caused in their community; and it is through we-narration that B-Mor has finally come together as a true collective, able to overcome the differences fomented by the Directorate and work toward a future in which they may be able to one day live solely for themselves, and not the Charters.
Works Cited
Bekhta, Natalya. “Novel ‘Forms of Life’—Collective Voices in Narrative Fiction: China Miéville’s Embassytown and Chang-rae Lee’s On Such A Full Sea.” Emergent Forms of Life in Anglophone Literature, edited by Michael Basseler, Daniel Hartley, and Ansgar Nünning, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2015, pp. 215–30.
—. “We-Narratives: The Distinctiveness of Collective Narration.” Narrative, vol. 25, no. 2, 2017, pp. 164–81.
Enriquez, Jeshua. “Crossing the Threshold of B-Mor: Instrumental Commodification and the Model Minority in Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea.” Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction, edited by Isiah Lavender, University Press of Mississippi, 2017, pp. 175–86.
Joo, Hee-Jung S. “The Asian (as) Robot: Queer Inhumans in the Works of Margaret Rhee, Greg Pak, and Chang-rae Lee.” Journal of Asian America Studies, vol. 25, no. 1, Feb. 2022, pp. 1–30.
Lee, Chang-rae. On Such A Full Sea. New York City, Penguin Group, 2014.
Munos, Delphine. “We Narration in Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea and Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic: ‘Unnaturally’ Asian American?,” Frontiers of Narrative Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 2018, pp. 66–81.
This essay was written in ENL 388, with Professor Evans in the Spring 2023 semester.