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The antagonist of the novel, Aunt Paula is Ma's older sister and Kim’s aunt. She moved to the U.S. thirteen years prior to the start of the novel after marrying Uncle Bob. She initially plans to have Ma provide childcare and Chinese lessons to her sons, Nelson and Godfrey, in order to repay her for sponsoring their immigration fees and paying for Ma's tuberculosis treatment. Instead, she chooses to create a job for Ma at her factory and illegally rent them a pest-infested and unheated apartment. This is the first in a long line of injustices that Aunt Paula carries out against her sister. Aunt Paula consistently abuses her power by threatening to fire or evict Ma if Ma doesn't go along with her wishes, and she takes particular offense to Kim's knack for academics. Kim understands that Paula wanted Nelson to outshine her, something he has no hope of doing. Keeping Kim and Ma in dire poverty allows Paula to maintain her control over them, as they all understand they need the work and will do most anything to keep it. To this end, she cuts their pay rate when she realizes that Kim is working fast enough to significantly up her pay. It's no secret that Paula is a nasty overseer to everyone at the factory; the factory kids secretly refer to her as Dog Flea Mama. Near the end of the novel, Kim learns that Paula is bitter towards her sister because she believes that Ma has spent her whole life refusing to do what was expected of her and sacrifice for her family; because of this, Paula thinks of everything she's ever done as unwilling sacrifices in service of Ma. Though Paula does express some remorse for her actions at the end of the novel, Kim and Ma still cut ties with her.
Aunt Paula Quotes in Girl in Translation
The Girl in Translation quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Paula or refer to Aunt Paula. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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One
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Nelson rolled his eyes. "Welcome to America," he said loudly for the adults' benefit. He leaned in to pretend to kiss my cheek and said softly, "You're a rake filled with dirt." A stupid country bumpkin. This time, his tones were perfect.
[…] I felt a flush crawl up my neck, then I smiled and pretended to kiss him back. "At least I'm not a potato with incense sticks for legs," I whispered.
The adults beamed.
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"Never forget, we owe Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob a great debt. Because they got us out of Hong Kong and brought us here to America, the Golden Mountain."
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Two
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Aunt Paula walked us to our workstation, passing an enormous table I hadn't seen earlier. A combination of very old ladies and young children were crowded around it, clipping all the extraneous threads off the sewn garments. This seemed to be the easiest job.
"They enter at this table as children and they leave from it as grandmas," Aunt Paula said with a wink. "The circle of factory life."
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As Ma had explained earlier, all employees were secretly paid by the piece; this meant that the work the children did was essential to the family income. When I was in high school, I learned that piece payment was illegal, but those rules were for white people, not for us.
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Nine
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Ma had told me that Pa had been a brilliant student, with a talent for both languages and science, and that I'd gotten my intelligence from him. I used to take comfort from that, but now I just wished he were here to help me.
All I wanted was to have a break from the exhausting cycle of my life, to flee from the constant anxiety that haunted me: fear of my teachers, fear at every assignment, fear of Aunt Paula, fear that we'd never escape.
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Aunt Paula Quotes in Girl in Translation
The Girl in Translation quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Paula or refer to Aunt Paula. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
One
Quotes
Nelson rolled his eyes. "Welcome to America," he said loudly for the adults' benefit. He leaned in to pretend to kiss my cheek and said softly, "You're a rake filled with dirt." A stupid country bumpkin. This time, his tones were perfect.
[…] I felt a flush crawl up my neck, then I smiled and pretended to kiss him back. "At least I'm not a potato with incense sticks for legs," I whispered.
The adults beamed.
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"Never forget, we owe Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob a great debt. Because they got us out of Hong Kong and brought us here to America, the Golden Mountain."
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Two
Quotes
Aunt Paula walked us to our workstation, passing an enormous table I hadn't seen earlier. A combination of very old ladies and young children were crowded around it, clipping all the extraneous threads off the sewn garments. This seemed to be the easiest job.
"They enter at this table as children and they leave from it as grandmas," Aunt Paula said with a wink. "The circle of factory life."
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As Ma had explained earlier, all employees were secretly paid by the piece; this meant that the work the children did was essential to the family income. When I was in high school, I learned that piece payment was illegal, but those rules were for white people, not for us.
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Nine
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Ma had told me that Pa had been a brilliant student, with a talent for both languages and science, and that I'd gotten my intelligence from him. I used to take comfort from that, but now I just wished he were here to help me.
All I wanted was to have a break from the exhausting cycle of my life, to flee from the constant anxiety that haunted me: fear of my teachers, fear at every assignment, fear of Aunt Paula, fear that we'd never escape.
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