When I first picked up Shaun Tan’s The Arrival I was surprised to find it under the children’s picture book section at Barnes and Noble. I didn’t know what to expect from the book, I certainly didn’t expect to connect to it emotionally the way that I did. The first time I looked through the book, I just quickly skimmed through it, not paying attention to the details. By doing this, I was a little confused. Sure it is a story about a man who leaves home, goes to some new land, and then eventually brings his family over as well. But what exactly is this strange land? What are these animals, strange foods, and odd buildings? What is this language? After going through the book again paying more attention to the details I realized that being confused about this land is the whole purpose to the story. These surreal details are meant to make you feel as if you too are traveling to a different country where life is different than what you’re used to.
The one surreal element of the new world that interested me the most was the language. It is completely different than anything we are used to. It is clearly not a western language because it is not a modern western alphabet. This takes away the typical stereotype that immigrant stories about those who moved West typically to America. This land could be anywhere because in truth, people escaped to many places. Shaun Tan’s father for example didn’t emigrate to the United States, he went to Australia.
Another aspect of this brand new language that I connected to was the fact that no reader could understand it, just like the protagonist. With no words at all the reader is able to connect with the protagonist and still understand the story. We are put in this new country where we point to words we don’t understand, words we don’t know how to pronounce, or how to read. The only way to communicate is through signs and images. It helped me connect my own life to the protagonist’s. My parents moved here from Albania and they didn’t understand any English at all. I was still a toddler at that time so I don’t remember much, but they’re stories about how they struggled so much because of miscommunication always makes me so much more appreciative of how easy I have it now. Reading this picture book I finally was able to understand what my parent’s meant by looking at something and having no clue what it meant. Just like the strange language in the book, English too was once strange for my parents.
This sense of attachment that I created with the protagonist is what made this book so meaningful for me, and what makes it so much more than any children’s picture book. It is a story that everyone lives through in one way or another, even moving to a new school, or town can leave you feeling confused and alone at first. You are able to live through the protagonist and see the story of the life of any immigrant unfold. We learn to get accustomed to this strange land and see that everyone has different experiences within it. Overall it’s not just one person’s or one ethnicity’s immigration story, it’s every human’s immigration story.
