In Su Hwang{u2019}s rich lyrical and narrative poetics, the bodega and its surrounding neighborhoods are cast not as mere setting, but as an ecosystem of human interactions where a dollar passed from one stranger to another is an act of peaceful revolution, and desperate acts of violence are the price / of doing business in the projects where we / were trapped inside human cages{u2015}binding us / in a strange circus where atoms of haves / and have-nots always forcefully collide. These poems also reveal stark contrasts in the domestic lives of immigrants, as the speaker{u2019}s own family must navigate the many personal, cultural, and generational chasms that arise from having to assume a hyphenated identity{u2013}{u2013}lending a voice to the traumatic toll invisibility, assimilation, and sacrifice take on so many pursuing the American Dream. We each suffer alone in / tandem, Hwang declares, but in Bodega, she has written an antidote to this solitary hurt{u2015}an incisive poetic debut that acknowledges and gives shape to anguish as much as it cherishes human life, suggesting frameworks for how we might collectively move forward with awareness and compassion.