88 pages • 2 hours read
We're Not from Here
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Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “But Seriously, Please Go Away”
Lan’s family shut themselves in the ship just before the swarm reaches it. The Zhuri pound on the craft and yell for the humans to go home, saying they aren’t wanted. Finally, Zhuri soldiers get the protesters under control using pronged weapons that deliver electric shocks, and they taxi the ship into a hanger where Lan’s family can exit safely. Lan’s dad reminds everyone to smile, but there are guards pointing more pronged weapons at them, and Lan finds it difficult to feign happiness.
Two unarmed Zhuri who smell like sour milk apologize for the display outside. They explain that Lan and the others will be returned to their ship so they can leave, but Lan’s mom reiterates that the humans have nowhere else to go and only wish to live in peace on Choom. The unarmed Zhuri tell the family to wait; they then leave to find someone with the authority to make a decision about the humans.
Chapter 6 Summary: “A Home for Giant Marshmallows”
Several hours later, one of the Zhuri (named Leeni) returns. He’s found a temporary home for the humans until they leave the planet. Lan’s mom asks about the sour-milk smell, which offends Leeni because he’s “making a great effort to control [his] fear smell” (46). Lan’s mom apologizes, and the fear smell fades.
Leeni takes the humans to an enormous empty Ororo house, where they spend the night. The next morning, he returns with food from the planet’s various species and is confused when the humans like the less “efficient” Ororo food. Leeni asks again when the family will leave the planet, adding that the chief servant of the Executive Division of the government ordered them to stay in the house except to go back to their ship. Since they can’t meet with the chief servant otherwise, Lan’s mom invites the chief servant and any other representatives from Choom’s four races to a dinner party to prove that “the people of Choom have nothing to fear from humans” (55).
Chapter 7 Summary: “Alien Dinner Party”
A few days later, Lan’s family hosts a dinner party for the chief servant of the Executive Division and representatives of the Krik and Ororo. When Lan’s mom asks about the Nugs, the officials look nervous before explaining that there are no longer Nugs on Choom. To break the tension, Leeni suggests that Lan, Ila, and the two Zhuri children in attendance (Hooree and Iruu) go out and play. Hooree and Iruu start to play a game that requires flying but stop when they learn humans don’t fly. Instead, they tell Lan and Ila about their school, where the three species of Choom learn together in peace.
Lan’s dad calls the children in for dinner, where the chief servant makes a televised speech about how Choom welcomes refugees if they prove themselves peaceful. Lan’s mom introduces Ila as a singer, but the chief servant starts to stink of gasoline (anger) and orders the cameras be turned off: He explains that Choom has no use for art because all art does is encourage emotions, which are toxic and have been removed from society. Lan’s mom points out that the Zhuri were obviously angry when her family arrived on the planet, and the chief servant blames the emotions on the humans’ presence. Lan’s mom implores the chief servant to honor the former government’s decisions, and after a long angry silence, he agrees, adding that when the human experiment fails, the family “will leave this planet forever” (67).
Chapter 8 Summary: “Who Wants to Eat the New Kid?”
The next day, Lan and Ila attend school with the Zhuri, Ororo, and Krik children while their parents start new jobs. Lan and Ila are nervous even before an angry crowd gathers outside the school building yelling for the humans to go home. The principal assigns Iruu and Hooree as guides for Ila and Lan, and the kids go to their classes. Armed guards accompany them, and Lan wonders if the guards are there to “protect [them] from the Zhuri, or to protect the Zhuri from [them]” (74).
Lan’s classroom fills with the sour-milk smell of fear. The teacher reassures the students they have nothing to be afraid of and asks Lan to tell the class about humans. Lan says the humans are glad to be on Choom and is then bombarded with questions about human life and habits, including one from a Krik who asks what humans taste like. A Zhuri asks why humans kill other humans, which sparks other questions about how violent humans are and whether they brought their destructive weapons to Choom. The memories of Earth’s final days and humanity’s time on Mars overwhelm Lan, who starts to cry and receives no sympathy from the students.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
The angry “swarm” that Lan’s family encounters when they land on Choom has clear parallels to anti-immigration sentiment on Earth. This highlights the significance of Rodkey’s choice to tell the story from the humans’ perspective (and to avoid giving Lan a definite gender, race, etc.); the identity that results in the characters’ marginalization—their species—is one that all readers share. The novel therefore encourages closer identification with the characters’ plight as frightened refugees on the receiving end of distrust and hatred.
Relatedly, these chapters introduce the concept of scapegoating, a phenomenon where the members of a majority group blame a minority group for something the minority group has no control over or is not responsible for. Later in the book, the humans learn that the Zhuri fear participating in another massacre like they did with the Nug. Rather than acknowledge the past, move forward, and judge the humans on their own merit, the Zhuri blame the humans for Zhuri violence. The humans, though sometimes violent as a species, have no intention of hurting Choom’s people, but the Zhuri refuse to listen because they’d rather blame the humans for violence than admit their own violent tendencies. Ironically, one of the consequences of the Zhuri’s self-deception is an increased risk of violence—the very thing they are trying to prevent. Besides illustrating the importance of being truthful with oneself, this situation highlights The Dangers of Misinformation, including the propaganda that the government-controlled media feeds its populace about human violence.
The Zhuri show emotions through smell, and the suppression of smell illustrates one of the novel’s main conflicts. Following the Nug massacre, the traditionalist government decided that banning all emotion was the way to ensure no more violent acts happened on Choom. As a result, Leeni and other Zhuri are embarrassed about their emotions and encouraged to cover up the associated smells. Though the Zhuri and others initially welcomed humans to Choom because of their art and culture, the display of Nug culture that led to the massacre has since led the Zhuri to believe art and music are inherently toxic—that they cause uncontrollable emotions, leading to violence. The Zhuri policy on emotion illustrates how banning something controversial does not resolve the underlying problems and often leads to more strife. It also makes the choice of Lan’s family as trial settlers ironic, as the Zhuri now fear the very thing that made the human government select them—Ila’s singing.
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