In many instances, Brave Orchid privileges traditions and established beliefs over the needs and feelings of others, particularly those of Moon Orchid and her eldest daughter. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform. Amy Tenney Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women. In the case of Moon Orchid, she inadvertently forces her sister to relive the trauma of being abandoned by her husband, from which Moon Orchid never recovers. Women who will lift and build others, who will love and be loved, women who live bravely, both tender and fierce, women of indomitable will. Brave Orchid is pushy toward her daughter and her younger sister, often forcing them to assume roles to which they seem ill-suited. She is also much stronger than her younger sister and is unafraid to speak, whereas Moon Orchid is very timid. She differs from her sister, Moon Orchid, in that she does not care for fancy clothes and is so careful with her resources that she eats everything and cooks everything-even her children’s leftovers. She dyes her hair black to appear younger, then waits in line on Skid Row, her daughter recounts, with other recent immigrants to be chosen for work. She hires herself out to pick tomatoes on local farms. Brave Orchid is a dutiful woman who continues working long after her husband has retired. Brave Orchid had six children, but may also have had two older children, a son and a daughter, who died in China. Brave Orchid confesses to her daughter that she suffered a fall in her status when she moved to New York, then to California to work in the laundry that she and her husband opened. Though she was a woman of science, she told stories of fighting off ghosts, particularly Sitting Ghost, which sought the bodies of newborn infants and, during her years at medical school, tried to paralyze her with fear. During her years in China, Brave Orchid trained as a midwife and doctor. Brave Orchid is a strong, resilient woman and “a champion talker” who immigrated to the United States from Canton province in January 1940 after her husband, who had found work in New York, sent for her. Kingston’s mother and Moon Orchid’s sister.
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May 2023
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