In “The Paper Menagerie,” a biracial American boy named Jack struggles with—and eventually embraces—his Chinese heritage, showing how his identity can be both a source of discomfort and of joy. When Jack is very young, he and his mother (who immigrated from China) are very close. He seems comfortable with his Chinese identity then, which is particularly apparent in his relationship to the paper animals that his mother makes—animals that she literally brings to life by breathing into them. Jack’s mother learned this skill from her own mother back in China, who made the same kinds of toys when she was young, so the animals become an embodiment of Jack’s Chinese lineage. When he’s young, the animals—like his Chinese identity—are a source of joy, something he easily embraces.
However, once Jack is a little older, he begins to experience racism from neighbors and friends at school. In a particularly traumatic incident, a neighborhood boy named Mark disparages the paper toys for not being as good as his own plastic action figure and says something racist about Jack’s family. After this, Jack puts his paper animals away for good and starts gravitating toward his white identity; he insists that his family start eating “American food” and stop speaking Chinese at home, which permanently estranges Jack from his mother. Jack’s rejection of the paper toys marks a phase in his life when being Chinese is a source of torment and self-loathing; he feels that his Chinese identity, like the toys themselves, marks him as different and therefore makes him vulnerable. This only changes after Jack’s mother’s death, when Jack discovers that she wrote him a letter on the inside of his paper tiger in which she explained her own story of her life in China and in the U.S. She points out that his rejection of the paper animals and his refusal to speak Chinese at home hurt her, connecting this behavior to his hatred of himself. This reconnects Jack with his mother and helps him make peace with his own mixed-race identity. When he embraces the paper animals once more at the end of the story, it marks his more mature understanding of his identity; he understands the pain of experiencing racism, but he also knows that being half Chinese can bring him joy, comfort, and connection to his mother.
Racism and Identity ThemeTracker
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Racism and Identity Quotes in The Paper Menagerie
A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.
[…]
“Zhe jiao zhezhi,” Mom said. This is called origami.
The neighbors conversed in the living room, not trying to be particularly quiet.
“He seems like a normal enough man. Why did he do that?”
“Something about the mixing never seems right. The child looks unfinished. Slanty eyes, white face. A little monster.”
“Do you think he can speak English?”
The women hushed.
Mark, one of the neighborhood boys, came over with his Star Wars action figures. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber lit up and he could swing his arms and say, in a tinny voice, “Use the Force!” I didn’t think the figure looked much like the real Obi-Wan at all.
Together, we watched him repeat this performance five times on the coffee table. “Can he do anything else?” I asked.
Mark was annoyed by my question. “Look at all the details,” he said.
I looked at the details. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say.
Mark grabbed Laohu and his snarl was choked off as Mark crumpled him in his hand and tore him in half. He balled up the two pieces of paper and threw them at me. “Here’s your stupid cheap Chinese garbage.”
“English,” I said. “Speak English.”
She tried. “What happen?”
I pushed the chopsticks and the bowl before me away: stir-fried green peppers with five-spice beef. “We should eat American food.”
Dad tried to reason. “A lot of families cook Chinese sometimes.”
“We are not other families.” I looked at him. Other families don’t have moms who don’t belong.
He looked away. And then he put a hand on Mom’s shoulder. “I’ll get you a cookbook.”
Dad bought me a full set of Star Wars action figures. I gave the Obi-Wan Kenobi to Mark.
I packed the paper menagerie in a large shoe box and put it under the bed.
“If I don’t make it, don’t be too sad and hurt your health. Focus on your life. Just keep that box you have in the attic with you, and every year, at Qingming, just take it out and think about me. I’ll be with you always.”
Qingming was the Chinese Festival for the Dead. When I was very young, Mom used to write a letter on Qingming to her dead parents back in China, telling them the good news about the past year of her life in America. She would read the letter out loud to me, and if I made a comment about something, she would write it down in the letter too. Then she would fold the letter into a paper crane and release it, facing west. We would then watch as the crane flapped its crisp wings on its long journal west, toward the Pacific, toward China, toward the graves of Mom’s family.
Susan found the shoe box in the attic. The paper menagerie, hidden in the uninsulated darkness of the attic for so long, had become brittle, and the bright wrapping paper patterns had faded.
“I’ve never seen origami like this,” Susan said. “Your mom was an amazing artist.”
The paper animals did not move. Perhaps whatever magic had animated them stopped when Mom died. Or perhaps I had only imagined that these paper constructions were once alive. The memory of children could not be trusted.
The young woman handed the paper back to me. I could not bear to look into her face.
Without looking up, I asked for her help in tracing out the character for ai on the paper below Mom’s letter. I wrote the character again and again on the paper, intertwining my pen strokes with her words.
The young woman reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. Then she got up and left, leaving me alone with my mother.
Following the creases, I refolded the paper back into Laohu. I cradled him in the crook of my arm, and as he purred, we began the walk home.