Reviewed by Paige Pagan
Review Source: Teaching for Change
Book Author: Laura Gao
Laura Gao’s tender young adult graphic memoir, Messy Roots, speaks to the ongoing search for home, both as a physical place of security and as a mental state of reconciling with one’s identity and the quest for belonging. Gao pays homage to the Wuhan of her childhood before the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rise in anti-Asian sentiment, as well as both the privileges and burdens of being the child of hardworking immigrant parents.
The Wuhan Gao Yuyang knew was a countryside filled with infinite rice paddies, peaceful lily pad ponds, bustling markets, mischievous games with cousins, the elders playing mahjong, and bedtime stories of Chinese folktales like Chang’e and her guardian rabbit or Sun Wukong, the monkey king. But when she turned four years old, her world was upended when her parents sent for her to move to the United States with them after they finished graduate school. In Texas, she became Laura Gao, a young immigrant who struggled through learning a new language and culture while being one of the only Asians in a predominantly white neighborhood and school, and later balancing the pressure of meeting her parents’ expectations while also being true to her authentic self. Gao takes readers through her early experiences in U.S. school and Chinese Sunday School, her visits back to Wuhan since moving to the United States, and her exploration of her sexuality in college all to underscore to readers that regardless of background, the aches and pains involved in coming of age are universal.
This narrative critiques the concept of the American Dream, putting its false promises on display and uncovering the struggles immigrants endure to survive. Gao teases out the complexity behind the immigrant call for assimilation, which often leads to an identity in flux — one where you feel out of touch with your roots, but not in-touch enough with those planted in this “other” country. In a moving heart-to-heart scene, Laura learns that her father’s desire for the family to fit in was fueled by his fear that if they visited Wuhan before being issued green cards, they might not be able to return to the United States; that whenever layoffs rolled around, he’d be the first employee on the chopping block due to his lack of English proficiency; that he wouldn’t be able to find another job within the required two week period before getting deported. In this moment, readers witness the sacrifices immigrant parents make for their children and the difficulties they hide from them in the hopes that they’d face better circumstances.
Gao also humanizes a place that has suffered from demonization and continues to even in the post-pandemic era. While Wuhan has become a household name, stigmatized as a place full of bat-eating savages (p. 6), Gao doesn’t seek American acceptance from her portrayal of Wuhan; rather she features it as an ever-evolving place of beauty that holds its own magic in her heart and will always be home.
Paige Pagan is a Social Justice Books program specialist at Teaching for Change.
Find more books on this topic on our Immigration and Chinese American booklists.
Messy Roots by Laura Gao
Published by HarperCollins on March 8, 2022
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9780063067783
Also by this author: Kirby's Lessons for Falling (in Love)
Publisher's Synopsis:
After spending her early years in Wuhan, China, riding water buffalos and devouring stinky tofu, Laura immigrates to Texas, where her hometown is as foreign as Mars — at least until 2020, when COVID-19 makes Wuhan a household name.
In Messy Roots, Laura illustrates her coming-of-age as the girl who simply wants to make the basketball team, escape Chinese school, and figure out why girls make her heart flutter.
Insightful, original, and hilarious, toggling seamlessly between past and present, China and America, Gao’s debut is a tour de force of graphic storytelling.
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