“Years before these transplants dared to venture out of their suburban hometowns, Daniel had been a city kid who memorized the subway system by fourth grade. Yet he still felt like he didn’t belong. Post-Ridgeborough, it had never been easy for Daniel to trust himself.”

After Daniel is sent to his foster parents Peter and Kay as an 11-year-old, the uncertainties of having lost his family create in him an inner conflict. He longs for the approval of his new family and his peers, yet he feels that he will never gain this approval and will be abandoned once more.

“If only he had the right clothes, knew the right references he would finally become the person he was meant to be. Like Roland—self-assured, with impeccable taste—but less vain. Deserving of love, blameless.”

Throughout the second half of his childhood in Ridgeborough, Daniel conflates the otherness he feels as a racial and cultural other with his trauma of abandonment. In his eyes, he is responsible for losing his old family and believes that if he lets go of his old identity as Deming Guo in favor of Daniel Wilkinson, he might find the belonging he craves.

“There were other children like him in Minjiang, American born, cared for by their grandparents, with parents they knew by telephone. ‘I’ll send for you,’ the voice would say, but why would he want to live with a voice, leave what he knew for a person he didn’t remember?”

Deming was sent to his grandfather in Minjiang, China, as a baby when Polly can’t afford to keep him amid her mounting debts. This creates a gulf between Deming and his mother that they have to bridge when his grandfather passes away and Deming reluctantly returns to live with her.