You cannot run from your past

    To Baba, America is the place where he reflects on his past and feels nostalgic but for Amir, America is the place where he can run away from his mistakes. There is not a day where Baba does not think about Kabul and how different his life used to be.
    No matter how hard Amir tries to block out the past, it always finds its way back to him. Whenever Baba is proud of Amir, Hassan is always brought up. It does not matter what Amir did, Hassan is never forgotten. When Baba retold the story about Amir bringing back the blue kite, Hassan's name was mentioned. The day Amir received his car, Baba stated that he wished Hassan had been with them. It is here where the reader understands how much Hassan and Ali had meant to Baba. Even after three years of living in America, Baba never forgot about his old life and his family. At this moment Amir's guilt rushes back to him. Hearing Hassan's name was like "a pair of steel hands" around his throat.
     Baba still did  not manage to change his views on life. Amir brings up the topic of majoring in Creative Writing in college but Baba still believes that it is a waste of money and time to become a writer. To Baba, writing is something you do in your spare time after you finished your daily job of being a lawyer, doctor, or politician. Unlike Amir, Baba did not leave his past in Kabul, he brought it with him to America. Finally, Amir takes responsibility for his actions and realizes that everything that happened back in Kabul between him and Hassan was a result of him sacrificing for Baba. He had damned himself before and was not going to let history repeat itself.
     Amir, like many others, drives to be alone, away from the one thing that makes them feel insecure or restricted. As Amir drives through the more developed area of California, he compares the homes to Baba's. The line "Home that made Baba's house in Wazir Akbar Khan look like a servant's hut" stood out the most to me. Amir does not describe the home as his home but as Baba's. It shows that in Kabul, nothing was really his. Everything was linked back to Baba. It is as if Amir did not have a mind of his own until he moved to America.