Activism in ‘The Overstory’
Mimi is her father’s daughter. Winston Ma was an engineer, highly skilled and practical in his work and devoted to celebrating nature in every spare moment. He was an immigrant from China and the soul of humility.
Mimi, also an engineer, advances professionally and travels the world at the speed of light in the aftermath of her father’s untimely death. She has not realized how much of his passion for nature she has inherited until she falls in love with a small grove of pines outside of her office window. When she finds out that they are slated for destruction, an activist is born.
“For her entire life, unwittingly, she has complied with her parents’ first shared principle: Make no noise in this world… Don’t stand out; you have no right… Yet here she is, asking for trouble. Acting like what she does might matter.”
