How do you think culture and recent immigration played into Peter's father’s attitudes. Do you think your own family retains traditions or attitudes based on its cultural heritage?

How do you think culture and recent immigration played into Peter's father’s attitudes about his children's and wife's behavior, and their actions as a family? Do you think your own family retains traditions or attitudes based on its cultural heritage?

The father's attitude played a tremendous role in all the children's lives. However, I think it was the fact that the father had not come to terms with his own issues of culture and tradition and it was this confusion that he passed on to his children. Hopefully all families can hold on to their traditions, know and appreciate their cultures and backgrounds, it is the root of our lives. It is what makes us who we are.

I think Peter's father denied his children a lot of knowledge about their heritage. In his desperate attempt to assimilate into Canadian culture, he "threw out the baby with the bath water." Peter did not know where his parents were born, what his grandparents' names were, if he had aunts or uncles, etc. There are no recent immigrants in my family. My European ancestors have been here since the 1600s and my Native American ancestors were here to meet the boats.

Probably. He tried to adapt outside of the home, but at home, he relied on what he knew, and that was absolute subservience to his wishes.

The characters in the story were flat & not very engaging or well developed. I think there is a fantastic story line here that I had hopes for. There was more to the father than the cold-hearted, uncaring man; the mother had a history also but we never learned much about her even after the husband died. More information on the culture & immigration aspect would have helped make the characters more understandable. The last few pages of the book showed a light onto this but by then it was too late. I lost interest about 1/3 into the story.

My grandparents emigrated to the US from Eastern Europe. They had a very interesting mix of wanting to hold on to tradition while at the same time adapting. On the one hand, they were all members of a church that held services in Hungarian, lived in the Hungarian section of Cleveland and maintained traditions like the having a celebration at harvest time. On the other, they all taught themselves to speak, read and write English, and insisted their children speak English. (Interestingly, my mother found out as an adult that the only Hungarian she knew was what amounted to baby talk!) So, I don't think it was at all unusual for Peter's father to want to assimilate and be a successful part of the culture around him, and impacted how he raised his children.

I believe culture was the driving force for Peter's dad's attitude. He was a traditional man sharing in his old world traditions and cultural nuances. My family adapts and rolls with the times, very few old school beliefs are adhered to in today's times.

Peter's father wanted his family to be American, but his insistence on male dominance was an attitude he learned in his birth land. When I was growing up 50+ years ago, I knew that my grandpa was from Germany, my grandma was from Iowa and my other grandparents were from Georgia (the U. S. state). We had no ethnic traditions.

Peter's father was so intent on assimilating that he didn't want his children to know anything of their Chinese heritage. He couldn't shake his Chinese personality though as a male dictator. Their mother was even stifled she was unable to even speak Cantonese when she wanted to. Our family is from Ireland and we don't keep any of the traditions. We came over during the potato famine and I think too much time has elapsed. But I also think my family was very close mouthed also perhaps for the same reason.