Peeling Oranges

Moon Jae hasn’t been back home for a long time. Now she is returning to Oregon. There, in a house – or is it a haunted house? – her younger sister Luna lives with Umma, their mother. Umma has never completely left her Korean roots behind, and the memories and traditions of her ancestors walk through the house like ghosts, dancing and whispering. The daughters, on the other hand, are seeking to lead their own lives. But what price do they have to pay for the future, a sense of belonging and autonomy?

Writer and performance artist Patty Kim Hamilton writes quietly, urgently, and sometimes in an almost songlike way about the rites of loss: the characters represent the ‘old ways’ that are now barely visible. Before them is the new path, which remains just as foreign. What to do with one’s love? With one’s self-respect?