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The Stilt Fishermen of Kathaluwa
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Foreign Soil, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Place
The Limitations of Hope
Communication and Misunderstanding
Solidarity vs. Prejudice
Summary
Analysis
Mirabel adjusts the couch cushions and straightens the windows. She can still remember buying them with Michael near Union Square four years ago. Michael teased Mirabel about “nesting” as he ran his hands over her pregnant belly. Mirabel hoped that her pregnancy would work out. Only two weeks after that shopping trip, though, she lost the baby. Now, even though her empty house is so full of memory and trauma, she can’t bear to leave.
The theme of trauma reappears in “Aviation,” this time in the form Maribel’s multiple miscarriages. Like many characters from previous stories, place plays an important role in Maribel’s life: though painful, staying in the house she used to live in with Michael helps her keep his memory alive.
Themes
Mirabel returns to her cleaning. Child Protection hasn’t given her much notice. But these days, with just Mirabel and her dog, Big Ted, living here, it’s never that messy; Michael died three years ago. Mirabel walks to the window and observes the warm, golden sun. It was like this in Oakland the day Michael died. Her house was nearly packed, and she was ready to join Michael in New York. The empty house reminded her of how life was before she quit her teaching job to move across the country for Michael—before they realized how impossible it would be to have children. A knock at the door interrupts Mirabel’s reveries.
Not only does Mirabel’s house keep her memory of Michael alive, but it also reminds her of earlier, happier days, when she still held out hope for a better future. Though Maribel is currently living in Oakland—where she lived before moving across the country to be with Michael—Michael’s death transforms Maribel’s world into a symbolic sort of “foreign soil,” making unfamiliar and lonely a home that used to have happier associations for her. Finally, the knock at the door is likely Child Protection, though it’s unclear exactly why Mirabel is expecting them.
Themes
Antonio and Sunni wait outside Mirabel’s front door. This is the third place today that Antonio has inspected for Sunni, and he hopes that this one will work out. Antonio feels that there’s something unsettling about this place, but he tries to reassure Sunni. He wishes he could hug Sunni and tell him that none of this is Sunni’s fault.
Antonio and Sunni’s presence outside Mirabel’s front door answers the question of what Child Protection is doing at Mirabel’s house: she’s being evaluated to provide foster care for Sunni. Like the refugee and immigrant characters of other stories, Sunni is displaced, forced to navigate “foreign soil.”
Themes
Antonio’s mom doesn’t consider his work “a proper job.” Antonio is half Black and half Puerto Rican, and he graduated at the top of his class. His mom thinks that he’s throwing away his future—that children whose parents don’t want them are already “hopeless,” so there’s no point to Antonio’s work. Antonio’s dad, a big, muscular construction worker, promises Antonio that his mom will come around. Antonio hopes that whoever opens the door will be as loving as his father.
Antonio so far seems like a positive, well-meaning character. He’s forgoing a higher paycheck and a less stressful job to be an advocate for kids like Sunni whom others, like Antonio’s mom, have deemed “hopeless.” Antonio’s mom thinks it’s better for Antonio, as a minority, to do everything he can to work his way up in the world, but Antonio recognizes the importance of giving voice to people less fortunate than himself.
Themes
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Sunni, meanwhile, just hopes that whoever answers it will be nice. The last two ladies were white and wore fancy, gold earrings, and neither of them wanted him. But what Sunni really wants is to go back to Sunni’s maa. The police who eventually came to get him when his maa failed to pick him up from school told him that “his maa was in custody,” though Sunni still doesn’t know what this means.
The detail that the first two women who rejected Sunni are white suggests that racism or prejudice may have helped inform their decision—the name Sunni can be of Sanskrit origins. Finally, Sunni’s young age—he’s at least young enough that he doesn’t know what “in custody” means—makes his situation all the more traumatic. The book has featured many characters who feel overwhelmed and alienated to be on “foreign soil,” but Sunni is by far the youngest.
Themes
Sunni overheard the police talking about what happened to Sunni’s maa, though. Apparently, she’d been yelling at people in a Walmart, screaming about terrorism and America. “We’re American. We’re not even Muslim. We’re Sikh,” she’d screamed. Sunni didn’t like how the police were talking about his maa—they made it sound “like she was really crazy.” They told Sunni that his maa had “done some bad things,” and so they’d have to find a new place for him to stay. The police seemed like they felt bad for Sunni, and Sunni hated them for it. After that, Antonio came to get him.
This passage lends some clarity to Sunni’s situation. It seems that he and his mother have been the targets of anti-Muslim harassment—even though they’re not even Muslim. The cause for such harassment seems to be the simple fact that Sunni and his mother have dark skin and look different from the average white American citizen. That Sunni’s maa was punished in the first place may be seen as another layer of racism. The police claim that she was being “really crazy” and did “some bad things.” While this may be true, the narrative implicitly points to the hypocrisy of demonizing Sunni’s maa’s reaction to racial harassment while letting the instigators of the racial harassment off the hook.
Themes
Back in the present, Mirabel goes to answer the door. As she walks, the floors turn to blue carpet, and her surroundings transform into the interior of a plane. She can hear men yelling things in a language she doesn’t understand. She sees the first tower of the World Trade Center through the glass. Mirabel struggles to breathe; she tries to tell herself it isn’t real. She sees Michael in the first tower; he turns around, a look of confusion on his face. Mirabel tells herself that today will be a fresh start for her; she wants this child to be hers and Michael’s, though she knows this is impossible. Maybe the child will even have Michael’s sandy hair and green eyes.
Mirabel’s anxiety attack sheds light on the Michael’s death and the catalyst for the harassment that Sunni and his mother have faced: she’s seeing herself inside one of the hijacked planes that Al Qaeda terrorists flew into the World Trade Center in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Presumably Michael was working inside one of the twin towers when the attack took place. Because the terrorists were Islamic extremists, many people of Middle Eastern descent who lived in the U.S.—or people who looked, to ignorant eyes, “Muslim”—experienced increased harassment following the attacks. It seems that Sunni and his maa’s brown skin made them targets for such harassment.
Themes
Mirabel opens the door. Antonio introduces himself and Sunni. Mirabel greets Sunni and tells him she’s glad he’s here. Then she invites Sunni and Antonio inside, gesturing for them to sit on the couch. Antonio walks to the couch and scans the photographs on the wall, many of which feature Mirabel with a man. Antonio thought he’d read that Mirabel’s husband (Michael) was dead; something isn’t right. Then he sees the American flag resting on the ledge. Below it is a photograph of her husband with the words “September 11, 2001. Never forgotten. God Bless America” written across it. Now Antonio understands. He feels Sunni shaking next to him on the couch and wonders if he sees the flag, too.
Antonio and Sunni both spot the September 11 objects memorializing Michael’s death on the walls—and they both seem to recognize that this may make it impossible for Sunni, with his brown skin, to stay with Mirabel. It’s clear that Mirabel is still traumatized by Michael’s death. It’s possible that her grief and trauma may cause her to misdirect the anger and fear she feels toward the Muslim terrorists who actually killed Michael toward Sunni, who, though blameless, has the misfortune of resembling those bad men, at least to Mirabel’s ignorant, traumatized eyes.
Themes
Mirabel leaves Antonio and Sunni sitting on the couch and goes to the kitchen to make some tea. The boy is eight, but he looks younger. He seems scared of her. She realizes she’s basically ignored him and resolves to really interact with him when she returns from the kitchen. She finishes making tea, assembles some cookies on a plate, and brings everything back to the living room. She looks at Sunni directly and tells him how happy she is that he’s here.
When not consumed by her trauma, Mirabel is able to think clearly and recognize that Sunni is just a kid in need of her help—he’s totally separate from the bad men who killed her husband and thousands of others. Whether or not Mirabel well be able to reconcile her trauma-induced prejudice to act in solidarity with Sunni remains unknown, though.
Themes
Sunni looks up at Mirabel timidly. When he does, she sees something poking out from under his baseball cap. Mirabel looks away from Sunni and turns to Antonio. Antonio carefully instructs Sunni to be polite and remove his cap. Sunni does, revealing “a piece of black, stretchy material” that covers his hair. Sunni sees that Mirabel is no longer smiling—she’s doing what everyone does. She’s doing what made his maa go crazy and yell. Sunni shoves cookies into his mouth to try to stop the bad thoughts, but they come anyway.
Mirabel’s reaction to Sunni’s head covering all but confirms that she won’t be able to set aside her prejudices to help him. And that Sunni recognizes her reaction as the same thing everyone else does speaks to the prevalence of anti-Middle Eastern harassment in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Themes
At first, things were okay with Sunni and Sunni’s maa. Sunni’s dad left them when Sunni was really young, and Sunni barely remembers him. He and his maa lived in an apartment. Their elderly neighbors, Bill and Susie, used to watch Sunni when his maa was at work. They were lonely, with no children or grandchildren of their own, and Sunni knew they loved him. But all that changed after bad men crashed planes into the towers in New York. After that, people stopped being kind to Sunni and his maa. Someone threw a roof tile through their window. Sunni’s maa explained that people think they’re Muslim, but that things would eventually get better.
Being on foreign soil—that is, being a racial, religious, or ethnic minority—wasn’t so bad for Sunni and his maa when they had people in their life like Bill and Susie, who supported them and made them feel welcome. But after the terrorist attacks, their community turned its back on them, rendering the formerly familiar soil foreign once more.
Themes
But things got worse. Bill and Susie stopped looking after Sunni. They planted flowers in the concrete that separated their balcony from Sunni’s. Sunni’s maa explained that the flowers, oleander, were poisonous. There was a scared look on her face as she said this—the same face that Sunni sees on Mirabel’s face now.
Not only have Bill and Susie turned their backs on Sunni and his maa, but the act of planting a poisonous plant, oleander, serves as a symbolic threat. Almost overnight, Sunni and his maa go from being accepted members of a community to feared, foreign outsiders who prejudiced folks believe pose a threat to that community.
Themes
Antonio looks at Mirabel. Mirabel panics; she reminds herself that Sunni is watching her and tries to calm down. She apologizes to Antonio, explaining that she was just caught off guard. She says Sunni “looks scared.” Antonio says that Sunni is scared. He reminds Mirabel that she agreed to provide emergency care—“For any child.” It’ll just be for the weekend.
Tension mounts as Mirabel consciously tries to reconcile her trauma-induced prejudice with her knowledge that Sunni is a blameless child who has nothing to do with her husband’s death.
Themes
Mirabel considers what Michael would do. She thinks back to the day they shopped for curtains. Antonio interrupts her thoughts and explains that Sunni’s family is Sikh. Mirabel hardly hears them—and she doesn’t know what Sikh means, either. She asks where Sunni will go if she can’t take him. Antonio says he doesn’t know. He reminds Mirabel that Sunni is only a child. Mirabel closes her eyes and imagines the plane again. Everything is spinning, and she hears the men shouting in the strange language again. Antonio is speaking to her, but she can’t hear what he’s saying.
The reappearance of Mirabel’s anxiety attack doesn’t completely rule out the possibility that she’ll overcome her prejudice to offer Sunni care, but it’s seeming less likely than ever that this will happen—especially since she can no longer rouse herself from her vision to hear what Antonio’s saying to her. This is yet another story that ends ambiguously, leaving it up to the reader to dwell on what decisions the characters will make after the story has ended.
Themes
