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Part 1, Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Our Missing Hearts, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Free Speech, Patriotism, and the Corruption of Truth
Surveillance, Fear, and Discrimination
The Power of Art and Imagination
Parental Responsibility, Rights, and Experience
Privilege, Silence, and Complicity
Summary
Analysis
At school, Bird eats alone. He used to eat with Sadie, though Ethan warned him not to spend too much time with her. Today, Bird asks his science teacher, Mrs. Pollard, if he can use one of the school computers during lunch. He eyes the empty bookshelves behind her, thinking of the time Sadie questioned their previous teacher’s claim that books weren’t banned, just weeded out for unsafe content. According to that teacher, it was the school’s job to decide which ideas were appropriate for children. Books that might encourage children to do “bad things” were removed for their safety.
Ethan’s directive not to spend too much time with Sadie demonstrates how becoming associated with government-labeled “troublemakers” can make one guilty by association. The school’s complete lack of books is jarring, implying that “dangerous ideas” are omnipresent in literature. That the school has taken responsibility for determining what is and is not appropriate for children is a clear restriction of parental rights.
Themes
Mrs. Pollard lets Bird use the computers, which have been donated by an Asian American family to prove their loyalty to the community. He searches for Margaret’s story about the cats, then searches for “Margaret Miu” and “our missing hearts.” The screen freezes on his last query. Seeing this, Mrs. Pollard tenses. She tells Bird that this country doesn’t hold the mistakes of parents against their children. She says that Bird is a good kid but reminds him to keep his head down and take a different path from his mother. Bird feels he has wasted his time on the pointless hope that his mother might have a message for him.
The donated computers show how discrimination has put Asian Americans at a disadvantage, forcing them to put extra effort into proving their loyalty. Despite the fact that Bird’s searches turn up no results, Mrs. Pollard’s warning suggests that even being curious about his mother’s legacy is dangerous, as the authorities might interpret such curiosity as following in Margaret’s seditious footsteps. Her insistence that Margaret’s mistakes will not be held against Bird directly contradicts the way other children and teachers treat him.
Themes
On his way home from school, Bird sees a crowd and police officers gathered in the Common. Ignoring Ethan’s orders to walk straight home, he investigates the scene instead. Someone has woven a web of red yarn around the trunks of three trees. There are knit dolls dangling hanging from the yarn, and the message “HOW MANY MORE MISSING HEARTS WILL THEY TAKE?” is stenciled nearby. Officers with riot gear disperse the crowd as Bird wonders how someone could pull of this stunt and whether Margaret was involved. He realizes the dolls represent re-placed children, like Sadie.
The appearance of a second artistic protest again suggests the anti-PACT movement is gaining traction. The police officers’ riot gear reads as overkill in this context, since no violent protests are underway. This highlights how unprepared authorities are to address artistic protest whose message works its way into the memories of its viewers, a message which cannot be shut down in a show of force. Here, the phrase “missing hearts” becomes associated with the displaced children, of which—the art piece suggests—there are many.
Themes
Sadie had been frustrated with Bird’s naivety, asserting that PACT re-placed many more children than he realized. Sadie’s own mother, Erika, was a journalist who was arrested on camera while reporting on the removal of a child based on his mother’s anti-PACT activity on social media. This only made Sadie’s mother bolder, and she continued to cover PACT-related child re-placement. Though her boss warned her to stop for her family’s sake, Sadie’s mother questioned whether anything could protect her family at this point, and she was proven right when Sadie was taken just weeks later.
Bird’s ignorance of how common PACT removals are indicates a level of privilege—he does not know because it has not directly affected him. In addition, statistical reportage on PACT removals is suppressed, as Sadie knows because of what her mother went through. In this way, the government hides the truth of its own injustice to maintain control of its citizens.
Themes
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Sadie was taken from her parents at night. She heard men enter her house and her father shout, and she remembered how Erika didn’t shake at all as she continued to comb Sadie’s hair. The officer wouldn’t let her mother finish her braids, declaring that Sadie was no longer her responsibility. Sadie went quietly into the car with the officers, remembering her mother’s warnings about policemen. Afterward, when she realized she wasn’t going home again, she regretted not fighting back. Although several foster families tried to control her, Sadie rebelled against their rules and strictures, and she was re-placed again and again as a result.
Acting under cover of darkness indicates that PACT authorities know that taking children would be more controversial if more people witnessed it. The officers’ casual cruelty denotes how distasteful they find Erika’s crimes of questioning authority, showing how entrenched PACT ideology is in their own minds. Stripping Erika of her parental rights, down to her responsibility to care for her daughter’s hair, feels like overkill and shows how unreasonable PACT authorities are.
Themes
Even when Sadie’s removal from her parents was made permanent, she never cried. Last year, she suggested that she and Bird run away and look for their missing parents, but he turned her down, insisting she would be caught. After Sadie disappeared, everyone acted like she had never existed in the first place. But Bird thinks of her now, picturing the knit dolls in the Common. In the morning, though the evidence is stripped away, there are still bits of yarn and gashes on the trunks of the trees. Bird is determined to find out what is going on.
Sadie’s refusal to grieve openly and her plan to find her parents point to her intrepid hope. Despite being sheltered from the harsh realities of PACT removal and re-placement, Bird is much more cautious than Sadie, who has nothing left to lose. Bird’s memories of Sadie and the fact that he can still see bits of yarn on the tree indicate that missing people (like, perhaps, Bird’s mother) cannot be erased completely; traces always remain.
Themes
