“Magical Dinners”
by Chang-Rae Lee tells of a Thanksgiving dinner shared by Lee and his family
when he was a child. A personal narrative, this essay centers on Lee’s
assimilation into American culture via food.
It is an honest assessment of his transition. Lee moved to America from
Korea as a three year old and tells of the Thanksgiving when he was seven. Throughout
the description of this special night for Lee, the story intertwines his memories
as a little boy just having moved to America. In the essay, Lee recounts the
different responses his family members have to the new foods.
Lee shows
throughout the story that immigrants have an innate feeling to hold on to their
own culture and that they are often confused by the new one. Lee cleverly weaves together the past and the
present to show this in different stages of his life. His parents are very
persistent to hold onto their Korean traditions. His mother spends all her time
in the kitchen because she feels cooking remains the only tie to her home,
“What else do they have but the taste of those familiar dishes, which my mother
can, for the most part, recreate from ingredients at the nearby A&P” (Lee
129). When Lee starts experiencing
American food at his friends’ houses, he is excited to have his mom try making
them. The unfamiliar dishes originally challenge his mother. Lee explains this
unknown feeling of trying completely different dishes, “For it is food without
association, unlinked to any past; it’s food that fixes us to this moment only,
to this place we hardly know” (Lee 133). He makes the audience understand by
tying the Lee’s confusion to the familiar emotion of being lost. His relation
to food ensures that all audiences would understand his individual story. Lee’s
personal style makes the essay easy to comprehend. When the story returns to
Thanksgiving, the emotions that this family feels become clear.
"We thank God for our homes and our food and our safety in a new land" - Linus Van Pelt A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
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