The Leftover Woman

The Leftover Woman’s depiction of the difficulties that new immigrants face in the United States, including the racism they encounter, is one of its most important themes. Kwok engages with the politics of race and anti-Asian racism in some way in each of her novels, and this theme thus connects The Leftover Woman with Kwok’s previous published works. All of the Asian characters in this novel are subjected to racism and prejudice, and those experiences add to the struggles that characterize the Chinese American immigrant experience. Additionally, immigrants like Jasmine are thrust into an assimilationist culture in which they are encouraged to shed the aspects of their identity that cannot easily be identified as “American.” Jasmine experiences assimilation as a kind of persistent, pervasive stress and always feels as though she must bury key parts of her character to fit in.

Jasmine arrives in the United States with limited English skills and immediately encounters difficulty as a result. She is told: “You people come to this country, and you can’t even learn English right” by a grocery store worker who also wrongfully accuses her and Fifi of theft (37). It is not only Jasmine’s language abilities that mark her as foreign: