What is the United States? To those living in the U.S., it is our home: a place where we go about with our prosaic and mundane lives. To those living outside the U.S., however, this is a dream world, a land of opportunity. Streets paved of gold, cash overflowing from pockets, and faucets which pour out beer instead of water are among the few conceptions that most foreigners have of America. As such, people will do virtually anything to come to this heaven.

However, Shaun Tan brings into light a different kind of America: an America that torments you if you don’t work hard, an America that destroys you if you don’t have the right papers, and an America that murders you if you don’t grab every opportunity you see. Such a cynical America is non-existent in the minds of anyone living outside of America. This America is a brutal, cold-blooded, and blood–thirsty monster that will suck the life-blood out of you if you cease to work hard. After witnessing this reality, most immigrants are often placed in a state of utter confusion. They can’t go back to wherever they came from, but neither can they rest and relax, for if they do, they’ll lead lives worse than those they lead back home. When a situation like this presents itself, one can do nothing but blankly stare and attempt to choose the choice that might be better in the long-run.

The previous paragraphs are my justification to why all the pictures in the book appear gloomy, monotonous, and depressing. When I first opened the book, the first thing that came to my mind was that this is a very depressing theme. After looking at a few images, especially the one with the woman crying after giving a hug to a man, I realized that this book’s theme acquiesced completely with the way immigrants felt after they came into the U.S – gloomy, monotonous, and depressed.