The cover is a simple picture of the daughter, Lia Lee, dressed in traditional Hmong attire. Looking at the picture, she is seemingly staring right into the camera without any overt emotion being expressed.
I think the discussion of power and how it operates in different ways at different scales was particularly interesting. While Kameko points out that this book was written in 1997, I think the descriptions of how power is expressed, fostered, and obstructed in this particular cultural context are pertinent to examinations of power structures that are a continuing part of the refugee experience today.
The sketch proposes adapting the book into a play or movie. Since one of the objectives of the book is to reach a wide audience, a movie would help spread Lia and her family's story and the socio-medical problems inherent within it. I think that's a good idea since movie screenings are a popular way to bring people's attention to a particular social problem. I think it might also be beneficial to turn it into a 10-minute animated short, like the kind designed for children.
I think it might also be beneficial to turn it into a 10-minute animated short, like the kind designed for children films. The way it centers on Lia's struggle with her medical disorder made it seem especially conceivable to have it made in a short. The fact that this book is about a young child also made me think that it would be a good idea to have the main argument of the book be put in a form available to young children, who might be also sick and visiting a hospital in the United States, and who also probably need ways in which they can be a part of their own healing process.
The text is laid out in a chronological order of events surrounding Lia’s condition. However, it does sometimes skip back in time to discuss the Hmong people in Laos or the Lee family’s personal experience during their time in and fleeing from Laos. The layout does not, in my opinion, aid in it’s argument however, as it is largely meant to be a narrative of this one story it does make it easy to follow and potentially available to a larger audience who are used to reading texts in this format.
The sketch describes the text as about what it means to be Zanzibari in post-Soviet Zanzibar, as well as the reconfiguration of the Swahili concept of ustaarabu.
The text begins with a historical account to set the stage, then shifts to ethnographic chapters to provide "texture" to the argument. The only visuals are statistical tables.
Graffiti on what appears to be an old building stating that the people of Zanzibar wish to be left alone in peace, and they are willing to fight for that peace. It sets the stage for a text about a time of great change, as well as places the author (and thus reader) decisively on one side of the issue at play.
I know very little about Zanzibar, and the sketch informed me of the extensive (and somewhat dramatic) history the country has. Specifically, this section was interesting:"It is mainly situated in the post-socialist context, at the wane of the 1980s, when Zanzibar and the rest of Tanzania were opened back up to commercial relations with non-Soviet bloc countries, especially those where some Swahili, Arab, and Asian Zanzibaris had family networks (like in the Arabian Peninsula and across the Indian Ocean).
"It could be presented as a set of stories or a historically-based novel about contemporary Zanzibar, tourism, and the perspective of locals navigating those spaces, like what opportunities, nostalgias, and conservatisms does this new era provoke in these varied characters."
