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A review by euastros
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Did not finish book. Stopped at 29%.
goddddd this book was so fucking. so!!
as Charles yu says in interior chinatown, stop fucking comparing asian experiences off black suffering and exploitation! stop trying to make the mythical black figure as this pinnacle of suffering! black people are nearly fetishized as a figure of oppression by hong in this book, as a path of "real" racialization. in contrast, the "asian" is unracialized—an experience not shared across asia! hong refuses to seperate her koreanness as a unique experience beyond small snips from the people around her that challenge this monolith idealogy, such a filipino friend telling her "Koreans are self-hating, filipinos are not". which as a filipino...true! her ideas of identity are so egocentric, in which being asian is to be *her* experience. it was not an asian-american reckoning, it was a Korean american one. this book critiques stories designed for white viewers and yet the whole book reads like its certainly not written for the audience it intends (that same monolithic asian experience). she's so insistent on the separation of "pure asian" that just...doesnt apply at all, and ignores west asians and south asians entirely when she claims asian is entirely detatched from brown and black as peoples. there's this voyueristic performance going on, about trying to prove that your suffering is universalized, even when hong proves herself to just be...kind of a dick. so many broad statements are made that the book is just a whole lot of me eyerolling. did i mention the anti-blackness? because the second essay is full of it. there's an obsession with the black suffering, with a need to be as "bad" as black trauma, with a need to define asian identity within a dichotomy of black and white. it's an extremely limiting perspective that drowns the book, and why i had to dnf it. there's no room for exploration outaide of this rigid racial line, no challenging the ideas of race altogether. not to mention the treatment of black women as a side thought and misogynoir being treated as a one off quip. i would argue issue too with the centering of a figure who seems to be complicit in the construction of misogynoir but. im just a guy! what can i say!
i was going to try and give this book a 2 star if i finsihed it but i'm disabled, its summer, and i have so many better books to read. this was such a shitty read that i dropped it within the day of starting it, something really disappointing to me considering how excited i was to read this.
on a side note, quite wild to see my college mentioned! i actually took an asian american writing class recently, led by my amazing prof, but my godddddddd i am sick and tired...SICK AND TIRED...sometimes...not everyone should write their thoughts <3
as Charles yu says in interior chinatown, stop fucking comparing asian experiences off black suffering and exploitation! stop trying to make the mythical black figure as this pinnacle of suffering! black people are nearly fetishized as a figure of oppression by hong in this book, as a path of "real" racialization. in contrast, the "asian" is unracialized—an experience not shared across asia! hong refuses to seperate her koreanness as a unique experience beyond small snips from the people around her that challenge this monolith idealogy, such a filipino friend telling her "Koreans are self-hating, filipinos are not". which as a filipino...true! her ideas of identity are so egocentric, in which being asian is to be *her* experience. it was not an asian-american reckoning, it was a Korean american one. this book critiques stories designed for white viewers and yet the whole book reads like its certainly not written for the audience it intends (that same monolithic asian experience). she's so insistent on the separation of "pure asian" that just...doesnt apply at all, and ignores west asians and south asians entirely when she claims asian is entirely detatched from brown and black as peoples. there's this voyueristic performance going on, about trying to prove that your suffering is universalized, even when hong proves herself to just be...kind of a dick. so many broad statements are made that the book is just a whole lot of me eyerolling. did i mention the anti-blackness? because the second essay is full of it. there's an obsession with the black suffering, with a need to be as "bad" as black trauma, with a need to define asian identity within a dichotomy of black and white. it's an extremely limiting perspective that drowns the book, and why i had to dnf it. there's no room for exploration outaide of this rigid racial line, no challenging the ideas of race altogether. not to mention the treatment of black women as a side thought and misogynoir being treated as a one off quip. i would argue issue too with the centering of a figure who seems to be complicit in the construction of misogynoir but. im just a guy! what can i say!
i was going to try and give this book a 2 star if i finsihed it but i'm disabled, its summer, and i have so many better books to read. this was such a shitty read that i dropped it within the day of starting it, something really disappointing to me considering how excited i was to read this.
on a side note, quite wild to see my college mentioned! i actually took an asian american writing class recently, led by my amazing prof, but my godddddddd i am sick and tired...SICK AND TIRED...sometimes...not everyone should write their thoughts <3
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
if u are any sort of brown asian or black do not pick up this damn book