Tuyen
Tuyen is a sharp-minded woman who wants to be with a girlfriend, but who feels limited by her community. Her life as an openly "queer" woman is admittedly difficult, and she often argues with her family. She doesn't see things the same way Binh does, but ultimately, they share so much experience because of their shared family history that they stay family even when they don't agree—which is the whole book. They basically bicker on and off the whole time.
Binh
Binh is Tuyen's brother and foil. Whereas Tuyen thinks sleeping dogs should be left asleep, her brother wants to reinclude Quy back into the fold, especially when they learn that Quy has escaped Vietnam to Canada. Binh feels they should reincorporate him into their lives, but Binh and Tuyen often fight about this, because she thinks it is unwise.
Carla
This girl is straight, by her own admission, but Tuyen believes perhaps there might be more to Carla than that. Sometimes she feels that Carla secretly has a crush on her, and Tuyen wishes they could be a couple, but Carla says she views Tuyen as a close friend, nothing more. Carla's little brother is Jamal, the young boy who harms Tuyen's brother Quy in cold blood.
Jamal
Jamal is an angry, disenfranchised person who becomes destructive against his own community. When he does crime, he steals from those who are near him. When he does violence, he beats innocent people who have suffered unimaginably difficult lives. He doesn't know that though, because his moral corruption makes him only think about himself, about his own anger and poverty, and he hurts others to help himself.
Oku
A poet and a young black man who hangs out with Tuyen's friend group. He loves jazz, like his father, but if you asked him, he'd say that's where the similarities end. His chronic disagreements with his father make him feel disapproved of, and so he goes to get a master's degree, to impress his dad, but eventually, he drops out and starts working through those ramifications with his father.
Quy
Quy is Tuyen and Binh's missing brother who was separated from the family as they fled from persecution in Vietnam. Although the family made it out, the son was taken to a different camp and treated as an orphan, eventually sustaining himself by associating himself with a gang, but after that goes badly, he joins a religious group to find enlightenment. Eventually, he moves past this too, escaping to Canada to reunited with his family.
