Necessary Roughness

With the death of Chan’s beloved twin sister Young, this final section of Necessary Roughness explores grief and The Personal Impact of Faith. When Chan first hears the news, denial feels like the only option. He thinks, “I am going to contest this play” (187). Through the lens of the sport he loves, he convinces himself that he can somehow change Young’s death. Chan then withdraws into himself, not engaging with Rainey and even fighting with Mikko when his friend, mourning Young in his own way, visits and tries to talk about things. Chan cannot bring himself to feel for Mikko losing his girlfriend when Chan lost his twin, “a person who was more than just a sister—who was more like half of [him]” (192). Young was the only person in the world who could perfectly understand Chan’s feelings about being the American child of Korean immigrants, of a childhood spent in Los Angeles that abruptly became an adolescence in Minnesota. Chan’s grief knocks his concern about football completely out of his mind: “[W]ith life and death intruding, I saw [football] for what it was: a colossal waste of time” (202). In the wake of his sister’s death, Chan sees the sport the way his father always has. Dealing with outsized grief, Chan inches toward adopting the adult perspective that sports alone cannot make up a life.

O-Ma and Abogee take comfort in community. Korean friends travel from Los Angeles to fill their home and feed their family with the familiar foods of their childhoods. These visits display the importance of community, and the care is almost mirrored by the grace and charity that Iron River residents show the Kims. Young’s funeral is a beautiful blend of the cultures to which she belonged, providing a positive example of what can be built by Navigating Cultural Difference. The ceremony, held at Mrs. Knutson’s church, incorporates both Korean and Minnesotan traditions. Sujin, Young’s best friend from LA, reads Biblical passages by way of a speech, tying together her life in LA and her life in Iron River. Chan and the rest of the family bow at Young’s casket, a Korean tradition that Chan usually did toward his parents on New Year’s. He thinks, “[I]f Young’s spirit was truly around somewhere, she’d probably be laughing at me, practically shoving my face in the dirt for her” (196). This is the first time Chan thinks about his sister as a presence beyond her life: Though Chan is not religious, he nonetheless experiences the personal impact of faith in his growing belief that his sister is still with him in some form.

This idea expands throughout the section, deepening the theme of the personal impact of faith. Chan changes his mind about playing football after a dream he has where Young cheers him on from the sidelines, reminding him that Young wanted Chan to continue his life. His father suggests that he’s talking about Young’s ghost when Chan mentions the dream. In the final play of the state championship game, when Chan makes a kick and both he and Mikko hear Young’s signature note on the flute, Chan’s character arc is complete. He has moved from skepticism to an ambiguous faith, and he has found comfort and self-assurance in his new community. Though he knows the note might have been his imagination, he chooses to believe that his sister is watching over him, demonstrating the degree to which faith is predicated on choice. This chosen faith allows him to heal in the last chapter when he visits Young’s grave and is delighted to experience Young’s first snow with her. He is unwaveringly confident that he is together with his sister during this scene. Through his grief, despite being a religiously confused teenager, Chan slowly builds faith that his sister is watching over him in some form.

Chan also observes religious behavior in two contrasting characters in this section—Leland Farrell, the Miners’ senior quarterback, and his father. Before the state championship game, Leland requests that the team pray together, and Chan is “almost jealous to see how much comfort he got from praying” (223). In the subsequent chapters, Chan begins to have faith, and he takes great comfort in believing that Young is present in his life somehow. In contrast with Leland Farrell’s public display of faith, Chan witnesses his father in a more private form of religious expression. Late at night, Chan walks downstairs and sees his father sitting in front of the fireplace with their Buddha statue—the same statue that Chan suggested they get rid of at the beginning of the novel. Believing that his father is praying to the statue, he reverts to his former skepticism, calling his father out for hypocrisy, since Christian doctrine would regard such prayer as blasphemous. Abogee’s faith is more flexible, however, and he explains that he is covering his bases: “I believe her spirit has gone up to heaven, but this way I will make sure she has a pleasant journey, just in case” (215). Abogee demonstrates an ability that Chan must master as a child of immigrants—he’s combining his roots with his present, creating a religion that is uniquely his own. This is something Korean Christians have done since the arrival of Christianity on the Korean peninsula in the 15th century. This cultural hybridity is what Chan is learning to do in his own life: He can keep the things that he loves from his parents’ Korean culture, from his own Korean American cultural community in LA, and from his new community in Iron River, without worrying about contradictions.

The tension between Abogee and Chan reaches a breaking point after Young’s death, resulting in their most vicious fight yet. When Abogee discovers that Chan has had Rainey in his bedroom, he furiously cries out, “Why do I have to be left with the disobedient child?” (210). For the mourning Chan, this comment could not cut deeper, and he retorts by blaming Abogee for Young’s death: “It’s all your fault—you and your stupid drug-dealer brother” (211). Both parties blame the other for their pain from Young’s death. They use words that they may believe at their worst moments, but the fight is a culmination of The Difficulties of Coming of Age, the challenges of Navigating Cultural Difference, and the grief that both Chan and his father carry but struggle to face. Shortly after, Chan sees his father with the Buddha statue in front of the fireplace, and his animosity disappears. When Abogee wishes he could give Young her flute back, Chan replies, “[S]he has her flute, Abogee. I made sure of that” (215). In their shared concern for Young’s flute, their grief finally unites them rather than divides them. After this incident, when Chan asks his parents to attend the state championship game, Abogee agrees. He even wears Miners gear alongside O-Ma and Mrs. Knutson—Abogee is able to put aside his preconceived notions about American culture and embrace the activity that his son loves, showing a step forward in their relationship.