A common motif throughout the text is the presence of various birds, which symbolize different things. For example, Bee notes that after his illness, he “fell in love with birds and chickens and all feathered things” (39). He even manages to capture a “beautiful songbird” something “it usually took a father” to do (40). Here, the songbird seems to indicate that Bee will be okay without his father and he will still be able to accomplish difficult things.

Similarly, Bee uses a story about a chicken to woo Chue. In the story, a beautiful wild chicken falls in love with a bald rooster, unable to fly, and they have babies. All the babies eventually leave the father except for one, and the owner of the chickens gives this beautiful, half wild chicken to Bee, who keeps it until the war begins, at which point it flies away. Here, the birds symbolize true love, but also the many losses Bee and his family will suffer because of the war.

Finally, the book ends with Bee describing the Hmong chickens he is raising in the new, smaller house that Bee and Chue buy after he loses his job. Bee notes that he has built cages for the birds in the Hmong