Hunger By Samantha Chang Summary

In some cases, keeping memories alive through flashbacks and keepsakes means survival. Hunger, a collection of short stories by Samantha Chang, explores images of life for Chinese-American immigrants. One of the later stories, The Unforgetting, looks into themes of assimilation and acculturation through an immigrant family. Ming and Sansan Hwang have come to the eastern Iowa hills in hopes of finding success and happiness in a new place. They quickly learn that in order to integrate themselves into their new surroundings they must forget their past and learn how to navigate 1970’s American society. Ming uses the youth and hope in his son Charles as his motivation. He wants for his son what he wanted when he was at his prime. Similarly, Sansan

Actually, his intense selflessness brings him to fault. His dedication to his son’s future is noble, yet consuming. “He replaced such useless memories with thoughts of Charles…he had believed…that he could make a new life in America” (139). Ming is eventually pushed to feel a subtle envy for the freedom and youth his son possesses. Ming had to let go of his culture and identity and because of that, Charles does not have learn the hardships of doing the same. In a scene where teenage Charles locks his room door, Ming’s reaction attests to his dependence on Charles. Tormented by the image of Charles’s locked door, Ming goes on to disable the doorknobs and locks on several of the rooms upstairs.

“The image of the door [had] disturbed him, as if Charles had access to another world inside that [locked] room, as if he might disappear at will, might float from their second-story windows and vanish into the shimmering, yellow Iowa light”

Charles does not try to satisfy his father’s near obsession with him. Because of his American upbringing, he does not understand what his father is dealing with in terms of loss of culture and identity. Ming is scared. He finally realizes realizes that he and his son are fundamentally different based on how and where they were brought up and their individual experiences. Because Charles has replaced his memories of the past, Ming has trouble recognizing the fact that there is this huge divide between them. If Charles “disappears”, so does, what Ming thinks is, his only true opportunity for success, purpose, and happiness in his new life.

Both Ming and Sansan have to leave pieces of their personal identity to learn the ways of 1970s American society. The difference between the two is that Sansan is left dependent on her husband as her provider in their adopted American culture. She quickly assumes the classic role of the American housewife. She learns English by watching television. She spends her time annotating a Betty Crocker cookbook. Sansan is given the opportunity to build her own, new life in America. Near the end of the story, Sansan’s frustration finally comes to the surface in a conversation with