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Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

33 reviews

jayisreading's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

"Asian American” is a complex identity. There’s first the question of who gets to claim the Asian American identity. Fundamentally, that would be anyone whose ancestral land is on the Asian continent. However, when we think of who the Asian American is, there are a few assumptions made: (1) they are East Asian (usually Han Chinese), (2) they come from an immigrant family, (3) said family is of the same ethnicity, (4) middle- to upper-class, and/or (5) they live in an area with a large Asian community. And it’s here that I ran into my frustrations with Minor Feelings, which is that this “Asian American reckoning” that Hong speaks of is… well, not reflective of my own reckoning, and I imagine many other Asian Americans.

Of course, Hong isn’t saying we all have the same experiences, but it sometimes came across that way to me, particularly the way she seems to assume that (nearly) every Asian American “gets it” when she talks about our relationship with the English language, feeling shame for being Asian American, etc. While these come from her own personal anecdotes, it’s the way she enmeshes them with cultural criticism and historical events that brought forth the frustrations I had while reading this book. And again, “Asian American” covers so much ground that Hong never addresses. What about adoptees? Multiracial Asians (especially those who don’t have a white parent)? West and Central Asians? South and Southeast Asians are almost afterthoughts in Minor Feelings. It’s not that I’m saying that she had to cover all of this (it would be impossible), but it raises the question of who she’s actually writing for and whether she can actually call this an “Asian American reckoning.”

I also had some issues with writing style and execution. I found the writing clunky at times, as though she couldn’t quite decide how to present her points. I could tell she wanted to share her viewpoints as an academic, activist, and a poet, but it fell short for me. In addition, some of her descriptions and choice in anecdotes were concerning. I was really taken aback by the amount of projecting she did of her own experiences onto other Asians (which was most apparent in the first chapter). Descriptions such as “Korean girls [she] knew [being] so moody they made Sylvia Plath seem as dull as C-SPAN” left a bad taste in my mouth, especially considering she had an entire chapter that focused on one of her friend’s mental health.

I don’t want to end this review on a negative note, because I still found that there were things to take away from this essay collection. For one, I truly appreciate the unflinching criticisms of US imperialism and capitalism. I don’t think US imperialism is talked about enough, as well as their roles in shaping Asian politics during the twentieth century (and to this day, frankly). In addition, her term “minor feelings” is one that I felt was strongly explored in “Stand Up.” I also thought her take on Stockton’s the queer child’s “growing sideways” to be a fascinating one, instead to consider the ways she looked sideways in “The End of White Innocence.” This ended up being my favorite essay, and what I felt was her strongest, in conveying nuance and care that seemed to be missing in many other parts of the book.

Overall, I think I’m disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I would. I saw so much praise from other Asian Americans about this book. Hong also being Korean American made me hope that something would deeply resonate with me. I’m not sure what it was that I wanted, but this wasn’t quite it. 

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just_one_more_paige's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

 
I've had this one on my TBR since it came out last year, so I'm excited to finally have gotten to it. I don't really have a lot else to say in this little intro. I had both the audiobook and physical book from the library, which I am realizing more and more that I really appreciate with heavier nonfiction like this. It helps me to move through it with the audio (plus, they're often read by the author, which is a favorite aspect, for me), but also gives me the chance to look back and "reread" and spend more time with the parts that strike me strongly with the physical copy. Plus, I've always been more of a visual learner, so the audio is great in many ways, but I also appreciate the chance to process in my preferred visual way alongside it. 
 
In Minor Feelings, poet Cathy Park Hong examines the racial reality of being Asian in America today, how history has created and built to this present-day reality, and spends some time in introspection regarding her education in art and career as a poet, including some critique of poetry and art and how they serve both her and others, but how they are co-opted by our racialized reality as well. 
 
Looking first at the opening essays that center on race in America and the specific place Asian Americans hold within that, I was so impressed with Hong's examination therein. It was very reminiscent, as far as Asian American identity, of what Yu dissects in Interior Chinatown, but brings an elite level of intellectualism to the topics, as the nonfiction format allows. Hong speaks magnificently to the flattening of Asians in America from a varied (geographically and culturally) people, to a monolith within model minority myth, in a way that disappears them, within the greater racial struggle (with the exception, as she mentions, of those who outwardly appear Muslim or in combination with another similarly marginalized/"feared" identity). This moves her into a discussion of Asian's role in racial tension, both as the victims of numerous racial oppressions and, on the other side, perpetrators of it (both inter-racially and intra-racially)...a situation with endless shades of grey in which she unabashedly "comes clean" on her own related mistakes, shortcomings, oversights and growth. One concept that she mentions in this first section that really stuck out to me was the contradiction of minority childhood and adulthood. She points out the way that white people force minority youth to grow up/"lose innocence" incredibly young (especially compared to white children) while simultaneously infantilizing/condescending to minority adults, which leads to the unique inability of racial minority family parents to protect themselves and their children from the white cultural majority. She presents what is really a complex situation in the most concise, straightforward and (rightfully) condemning way I've ever seen it and it's very affecting.      
 
In the sections that lean more memoir-ish, I really enjoyed Hong's discussion of how her female Asian identity has informed and been intertwined with her own art and poetry, the way she struggled against it and wanted to represent it. There are a few examples and comparisons that she uses, almost like case studies, including Richard Pryor's comedy and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee, that really helped me, as a reader, conceptualize the esoterica of what she was talking about. I also particular liked the essay "Bad English" in which she talks about reclaiming language (vocabulary, speaking patterns, accents) that used to embarrass her in her poetry. In addition, the discussion about what is cultural appropriation and what is cross-cultural inspiration is fascinating and difficult. Though Hong technically provides no answers, the questions are thought-provoking and important to consider. The other art parts, especially about Hong's time in college and her experiences with friends and fellow artists there, was just not my cup of tea. I did admire her openness to showing her own "ugly" or darker sides/moments, but I just was less invested in that entire section, as a reader. 
 
Overall, this was a really great addition to historic and cultural/media racial inequalities criticism in the US, particularly from Hong's Asian American lens. I felt like in general it was a bit disjointed, both within the essays themselves and in the changes of style/topic from essay to essay throughout the collection. I would have loved a little more cohesiveness or consistency in the flow and format. However, Hong brought the fire, no equivocations, from the very opening. Though there was some drag in the middle for me, she brought it back in the end to close things out with similar passion. I really appreciated my time with this collection and can say for sure that it added to my knowledge-base and awareness.        
 
MANY passages were highlight while reading. Here are a few: 
 
“But while I may look impassive, I am frantically paddling my feet underwater, always over-compensating to hide my feelings of inadequacy.” (Well, that couldn’t be more relatable.) 
 
“Patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it’s more than a chat about race. It’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct to their reality. Except it’s even trickier than that. Because the person has all of Western history, politics, literature, and mass culture on their side, proving that you don’t exist.” 
 
“It’s a funny thing about racialization in America [...] Whatever power struggle your nation had with other Asian nations – most of it the fallout of Western imperialism and the Cold War – is steamrolled flat by Americans who don’t know the difference.” 
 
“...the illusion of assimilation. The privilege of assimilation is that you are left alone. But assimilation must not be mistaken for power, because once you have acquired power, you are exposed, and your model minority qualifications that helped you in the past can be used against you, since you are no longer invisible.” 
 
“Literature supposedly bridges cultural divides, an axiom that rang false once I understood the inequities of the publishing industry.” 
 
“The ethnic literary project has always been a humanist project in which nonwhite writers must prove they are human beings who feel pain.” 
 
“...minor feelings: the racialized range of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one’s perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed. Minor feelings arise, for instance, upon hearing a slight, knowing it’s racial, and being told, Oh that’s all in your head.” 
 
“Minor feelings occur when American optimism is enforced upon you, which contradicts your own racialized reality, thereby creating a static of cognitive dissonance.” 
 
“Innocence is both a privilege and a cognitive handicap, a sheltered unknowingness that, once protracted into adulthood, hardens into entitlement.” 
 
“My shame is not cultural but political. It is being painfully aware of the power dynamic that pulls at the levers of social interactions and the cringing indignity of where I am in that order either as the afflicted – or as the afflicter.” 
 
“Suddenly Americans feel self-conscious of their white identity and this self-consciousness misleads them into thinking their identity is under threat. In feeling wrong, they feel wronged. In being asked to be made aware of racial oppression, they feel oppressed.” 
 
“Denial is always the salve, though it is merely topical...” 
 
“Capitalism as retribution for racism. But isn’t that how whiteness recruits us? Whether it’s through retribution or indebtedness, who are we when we become better than them in a system that destroyed us?” 
“I want to destroy the universal. I want to rip it down. It is not whiteness but our contained condition that is universal, because we are the global majority. But we I mean nonwhites, the formerly colonized; survivors, such as Native Americans, whose ancestors have already lived through end times; migrants and refugees living through end times currently, fleeing the droughts and floods and gang violence reaped by climate change that’s been brought on by Western empire.” 
 
“I’d rather be indebted than be the kind of white man who thinks the world owes him, because to live an ethical life is to be held accountable to history.” 
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sorcha's review against another edition

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emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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