When her American family returns to the U.S. after sixteen years in South Korea, Liz is a hidden immigrant. Her mixed-up cultural identity is veiled behind the face of the girl down the street. She's the granddaughter of upperclass Americans, but her homeland is a divided Asian peninsula of neon-lit cities, five-hundred-year-old palaces, and army dictators. Rice tells the story of her life in South Korea from ages nine months to sixteen, the influence of the tragedy and tension of the Korean peninsula, and the story of her parents, who walked arm-in-arm with social activists during South Korea's democratic revolution. Told with honesty and humor, Rituals of Separation captures the tension of living between identities, the deep longing for home, and the determination to find healing in the face of unrecoverable loss.