51 pages • 1 hour read
Lisa YeeMaizy Chen's Last Chance
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Threat of Racism and Xenophobia
Yee explores the nature and impact of racism and xenophobia through both Maizy and Lucky’s experiences. Although racism and xenophobia threaten to overwhelm Maizy, she realizes her self-worth and value through discovering the power of her voice.
One of the challenges Maizy faces is recognizing the different forms that racism can take. Although Lucky at times faces outright violence, much of the racism the novel profiles is subtler, ranging from verbal bullying to covert actions. For example, when Maizy arrives in Last Chance, other children bully her about her appearance. Maizy understands the prejudice that underlies this, but she also feels humiliated and stays quiet. Opa’s remark that the “racists who act friendly are the most dangerous” foreshadows the even more insidious prejudice of Mayor Whitlock (80), who writes the slur on Bud to make his newspaper article more exciting. Mayor Whitlock shows that he is only after his own personal goals rather than about bringing the community together and uplifting the Chens. Because of this, Maizy knows that she must stand up to him to protect her family and her own wellbeing.
This is not easy for Maizy. After Bud’s disappearance and the racist note, Maizy fears for her safety, not knowing who she can trust. Moreover, as an authority figure, Whitlock seems to Maizy like one of the few people she can trust. However, Maizy is ultimately able to challenge him because of Lucky’s stories, which provide Maizy with a key to understand racism as a continuum as well as a model for standing up to it. The underhanded prejudice Lucky experiences from Jenkins stems from the same source as the violence of the mob that attacks him or the bias of the police that fail to protect him. Moreover, that racism affects other people. Learning about the Chinese Exclusion Act shows Maizy the inequality and racism that exists in American history. Through Emmy, Maizy also encounters America’s legacy of slavery and the genocide of Indigenous Americans. Combined with the stories of Lucky helping the paper sons, these discoveries help Maizy understand her responsibility to speak out on behalf of others—something Emmy alludes to when she says that rather than shying away from the truth, they need to “shine a light on the problems while looking for solutions” (141). Maizy takes Emmy’s words to heart as she realizes that despite the pain of the past, naming discrimination and the way that it has hurt her will make things better for future generations.
The Importance of Familial Bonds
Through the racism and discrimination that Maizy faces, she realizes that familial bonds are essential to preserving her self-worth. The relationships between family members highlight the significance of community and sacrificial love even as Lee explores the costs of those sacrifices.
As the novel begins, the bonds between the Chens are weak. Maizy does not know Oma and Opa before she comes to Last Chance, and Charlotte has difficulty reconnecting with them. At the beginning of the summer, Oma and Charlotte argue over everything, in part because Oma believes Charlotte left Last Chance to get away from her, while Charlotte thinks Oma wants her to take over the Golden Palace.
It eventually emerges that Oma has always wanted Charlotte to have more freedoms than she did, as Oma sacrificed her own time and energy to work at the Golden Palace so that Charlotte could follow her dream. This resolves the tensions between Oma and Charlotte, but it also relates to a pattern of female sacrifice in the Chen family. For example, when Lucky ventures to America to send back money to his family, his sister must stay behind in poverty so that she can care for her family. Similarly, Ana chooses to leave her family to move to Last Chance and keep the Golden Palace running for the sake of her husband and children. While the novel does not gloss over the gendered double standards at play in these decisions, it celebrates these women’s actions. In fact, Maizy finds the stories of the women in her family inspiring because she realizes they had to sacrifice the most for their families, ultimately enabling Maizy’s mother to go “in the opposite direction to follow her dream, or maybe to find it” (194).
The novel stresses that familial bonds are particularly important in times of trouble—e.g., the racism that Lucky and other Chinese immigrants face. The existence of paper sons exemplifies this; while there are practical reasons for the immigrants to claim kinship with Lucky, doing so symbolically underscores how family can provide a vital support network. Nor is family’s importance restricted to times of widespread hardship. After Opa dies, Oma moves in with Maizy and her mother, showing how familial bonds can guide people toward healing from grief and sorrow.
Connection Between Generations
Yee emphasizes the importance of intergenerational connections through Maizy’s discovery of Lucky’s history. Maizy’s newfound knowledge about her family’s past fuels her desire to connect the paper son families together, hoping to give others a similar connection to their culture and heritage.
As Opa tells Lucky’s story, Maizy starts to connect her own experiences to Lucky’s life. The stories help Maizy feel empowered because she realizes she has a rich culture to learn from, but just how intertwined her life is with the lives of her ancestors only becomes clear toward the end of the novel. At Opa’s funeral, several of the paper sons’ families come to pay their respects, and Maizy learns that one of the women’s “grandfather taught [Opa] how to play cards” (238). Maizy realizes that it was because of this woman’s grandfather that Opa was able to teach Maizy poker that summer. This highlights the interconnection not only of past and present but also of Chinese American families, who all helped each other survive through a dark period of history; preserving the past and preserving one’s culture go hand in hand.
This dovetails with Maizy’s realization that Opa told her Lucky’s stories not only to encourage her but also to ensure that she could keep their family legacy alive. In the hospital, Opa reminds Maizy, “I’m betting on you to tell our stories” (234). Opa’s last words to Maizy remind her of the importance of preserving their family history so that future generations can find solidarity in the struggles and successes of their ancestors. Since Maizy recognizes the amount of work that still needs to be done, she creates the Last Chance Paper Sons website to bring people together and encourage people, just like Lucky did with the paper sons. Through her efforts, the story implies, others will be able to draw strength from the power of generations that came before them.
