Walker, Cisneros, Wright, Chan

The character Bill in Jeffery Paul Chan’s “The Chinese in Haifa” also has a difficult time being a man. As the characters suffer and endure hardships, they also gain valuable insight into the kind of person that they want to be. Bill must work though these feelings in order to be comfortable with himself as a single, Chinese-American man. “He shortened his grip and with both hands set the hook with a quick jerk, and her had her, he had this fish passing for his wife” (Chan 804). On their fishing trip, Bill imagines that one of the fish is ex-wife. Once she is there, a kind doctor plans an escape for Cleófilas. Bill gets drunk and by the end of the day he has slept with Herb’s wife. Her reality turns out to be much more depressing than she ever could have imagined. His family still treats him like a child. She wants her life to be like the soap operas that she watches on television, where love is the important thing in the world. He says to Joe: “Ahm gittin t be a man like anybody else” (Wright 1888). His children have been taken away from him and he turns to drugs and alcohol to numb the effects of his losses. He believes that by owning this gun he will find his true identity as a man and as someone to be respected. His misfortune prompts him to seek out a new life where he can find himself.