Digging to America

Digging to America by Anne Tyler depicts the story of how two vastly different families, the Donaldsons, a suburban American family, and the Yazdans, an Iranian family, come to befriend each other. The two families meet coincidentally at a Baltimore airport, awaiting the arrival of their newly adopted daughters from Korea. The Yazdans adopt Sooki, while the Donaldsons adopt Jin-Ho. “The Donaldsons, out of courtesy, invite the Yazdans to a celebration for the newly adopted infants, leading to the development of friendship amongst them. Throughout the story, the author contrasts the different views on modern culture and traditions in America. The Donaldsons keep Jin-Ho's Korean name and try to preserve her Korean heritage by dressing her in Korean clothes, whereas the Yazdans Americanize Sooki's name to Susan, but eventually call her Susie-june. The two families keep in touch after the Arrival Party and treat each other as family. Years pass and Jin-Ho changes as she grows up and asks to be called Jo instead. Susie-june learns how to speak Farsi, the Persian language. This is discovered when she overhears her father complaining about Bitsy Donaldson's personality. She asks, “Is Bitsy bad?”(102), with Sami responding “No Susie-june. Never mind, I guess I'm just feeling irritable” (102). As he was pondering for the word “irritable”, he realized that they were both speaking Farsi.

The story consists of many characters, but it does not have a lone main character. Every character's background is explored quite thoroughly, giving you an idea of their personality as well. For instance, Maryam is a religious, independent Iranian woman who treasures her country's customs and values, despite living in the US for decades. She values her cultu...

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...private boundaries of others. The Yazdans tend to keep their family life private, while the Donaldsons prefer to share important events with others. An example of this is when the Donaldsons invite many people to the arrival of Jin-Ho, recording the whole event as well. On the other hand, the Yazdans have only a small group of people and do not record the event. After the arrival, the Donaldsons invite the Yazdans to an arrival party for the babies, an event the Yazdans would have kept private.

In conclusion, Digging to America is not an exciting read. I enjoyed the first part of the book because it was about cute babies. However, in my opinion, the story didn't progress well. I really wish that something exciting happened in the middle of the story, as I felt that there wasn't a climax. I do not recommend this book to people who like action or adventure novels.