Traditional depictions of the immigrant novel portray a migrant who is eager to move to a new land and forget the old. In the novel called A Gesture Life, however, the situation of the narrator, a Japanese immigrant named Doc Hata, is much more complex. Through analysis of this narrator via Eriksons model of psychosocial development, originally enigmatic behaviors become both rational and predictable. Hatas reluctance to form intimate attachments, his reliance on the state, and his resistance to change are all explained as logical reactions to developmental trauma. Moreover, distinct changes in behavior at the end of the novel are revealed to be a process of identity formation, which is reliant on the complex interaction of psychology, biology (age), and the environment. Such analysis presents a holistic view of the immigrant experience, thereby clarifying the concept of transnationalism. The analysis also provides a new perspective to interpret the immigrant novel, which is based upon a migrants individual development in todays complex and interconnected global environment.