The White Man

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The short story "In the Land of the Free" by Sui sin Far there was an uncomfortable feeling presented about the white man. When I first looked at the the title of the short story, I assumed it would be a story that was happy, uplifting, and would make me proud to be in the "land of the free." However, I shortly found out that that was not the case at all. The moment that it sunk into my gut that this was going to be a heartbreaking story was when the officers said the Hom Hing and Lae Choo, "we cannot allow the boy to go ashore. There is nothing in the papers that you have shown us- your wife's paper and your own- having any bearing upon this child." And yes, that is the point that I realized... these people just lost the freedom of having a child.
Once they lost their child, you can feel the agony that Lae Choo is in. "Ah, how could I close my eyes with my arms empty of the little body that filled them every night." And as Lae Choo speaks about her child who had been taken for her, you can see that nothing can compare to the love of mother to her child. And she continues, "You do not know-man- what it is to miss the feel of the little fingers and the little toes and the soft round limbs of your little one." But still Hom Hing is optimistic that there "little one" will return to them very soon. Except, months past, and their boy still had not been brought home to them.
During the story there was mention of how white women were caring for the young boy and how he was now apparently happy and contented. That part of the story was the first mention of someone being "white" but it wasn't the last. I realized when the story talked about the white women that there would be more reference to white people. And the way white people were talked about almost made it unsettling. The next mention of a "white" person was when a man came to help Hom Hing and Lae Choo, but requested that they him five-hundred dollars. Lae Choo realizes that the man just wants money and says to him, "You not one hundred man good; you just common white man." This quote was when I realized that they were not in the land of the free; to me, it seemed like they were just in the land that was controlled by the white man.
The ending was still unclear to me at this point. There was so much emotional build up that the story could go either way, and I was almost 100% sure that it would have a happy ending. And then I read the last two lines, "But the little One shrunk form her and tried to hide himself in the folds of the white woman's skirt. 'Go'way, Go'way!' he bade his mother." How awful, how heartbreaking. It says that he hid in the white woman's skirt.. It ends with an unsettling feeling about the "white" man.