She took the Chinese name of a flower popular among the Chinese (Sui Sin Far means narcissus) and courageously asserted her Chinese heritage, even though this background was not evident in her face.
In "Leaves" she describes through personal anecdotes, her growing awareness of her own ethnic identity, her sensitivity to the curiosity and hostility of others, the difficulty of the Eurasian's position, and the development of her racial pride. The other theme apparent in "Leaves" and in many of her short stories is Eaton's defense of the independent woman. The biographical fact that Eaton herself never married and the intimate details of her journal entries would indicate that she is telling her own story, but she refrained from identifying herself out of a delicate sense of modesty.
"In the Land of the Free" is typical of Edith Eaton's short fiction. Her themes are of utmost importance: racial insensitivity, the human costs of bureaucratic and discriminatory laws and the humanity of the Chinese. The creation of rounded characters is a secondary concern. Lae Choo, A Character in the story, is little more than maternity personified, maternity victimized by racial prejudice. The very portrayal of a Chinese woman in the maternal role loving, anxious, frantic, self-sacrificing, was itself a novelty and a contribution. The popular conception of the Chinese woman, whose numbers were few in nineteenth-century America, was that of a singsong girl, a prostitute or an inmate of an opium den. In Lae Choo, Eaton gives the reading public a naive, trusting woman whose entire life is devoted to the small child that the law of "this land of the free" manages to keep away from her for nearly one year. By the end of the story the irony of the title becomes forcefully apparent.
Edith Eaton hoped to effect a change by means of her pen. To be the pioneer in bridging the Occident and the Orient. However, the last article she published, less than a year before her death on April 7, 1914, was still a plea for the acceptance of working-class Chinese in America.
