Almost American Girl

After several months in the United States, Robin finds some things that make her feel connected to her new home and the people there. In finding these things, she also begins to discover a new strength within herself.

Even in Korea, Robin felt The Power of Stories in Shaping Identity. Her favorite comic, Queen’s Quest, gained new meaning after she moved to the United States. Princess Eshika was banished from her kingdom by an evil queen. Robin sees a parallel between this and how she was banished to the United States by her mother. At her lowest point, she thinks that her comics can no longer provide her comfort. She thinks about when Princess Eshika “is lost in the desert and almost at the brink of death” (158). Facing-page illustrations show Princess Eshika curled up face-down on the desert sand while on the next page, Robin is curled up on her bed with her face in her pillow. Robin thinks, “I wished I would die” (159). Like Princess Eshika, Robin feels defeated by her environment.

The positive power of stories in shaping identity has a negative flipside. Robin becomes disillusioned when she realizes that real life is not always as easy as it is portrayed in fiction. When Princess Eshika is in the desert, “suddenly she gets rescued by a handsome nomad boy who later becomes her love interest” (159). Frustrated, Robin throws her comic across the room and thinks, “Things like this never happen in real life. Nobody is coming to rescue me!” (159) Robin has lived her entire life with just her mother for support. She calls her mother her “rock,” as she is the only stable ground in Robin’s life. When that stable ground is shaken by their move, Robin feels alone and unable to lean on anyone for support.

However, Robin is ultimately rescued from her predicament by her interest in comics. When she is at her lowest, a narrative turn is introduced with the phrase: “Then one day…” (159), just as if Robin’s life was a storybook tale. Her mother takes her to a comic bookstore, where she browses familiar comics and joins a comic-drawing class for teens. She meets Jessica and other teens with similar interests. While before she saw nothing positive about life in Alabama, now “[f]or the first time in months, I had something to look forward to” (168). She learns new things like how to draw buildings, comic panels, and original characters. She can talk to Jessica because of their common interests and gets better at English. Robin gains the linguistic and social confidence that she lost at her public school when people like Bryan mocked her English.

This newfound confidence allows her to finally “do what [she’d] never had the courage to do before” (173): to ask Sarah and her friends if she could sit with them at lunch. This small action takes tremendous courage for Robin. Sarah and her friends eagerly accept Robin, which shows her that her previous fears were founded in self-consciousness rather than reality. The mistreatment and mockery Robin faced upon entering school and her subsequent feelings of alienation prevented her from making the social connections she deeply desired, but bonding with her comic class friends and learning more English restores her sense of self.

This newfound strength helps Robin persevere when her mother uproots them once again. Just as Robin was mistreated at school, her mother feels mistreated by Mr. Kim’s family and decides they need to secretly leave Alabama. The strength of Robin and Jessica’s friendship is tested by this move, but just as comics brought them together, they help them stay connected over long distances. Jessica assures Robin that Virginia will not be so bad because there is a large anime convention there, and Jessica will visit her so they can attend together.

This newfound strength also seeps into Robin’s relationship with her mother, highlighting The Stress and Strength of Mother/Daughter Relationships. Even though Robin is upset, she observes how her mother “didn’t show even a hint of fear or weakness, venturing out in this giant country on her own” (201). She and her mother are both like Princess Eshika, finding their way in a new land. Her mother follows Princess Eshika’s example of strength and fortitude, which inspires Robin “to be strong for her” (202). Robin observes the strong women in her life—be they fictional like Princess Eshika, or real like her mother—and takes them as models for how she wants to conduct herself as she grows up.