A review by truongjph
Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America by Julia Lee

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

Didn’t think the book I finished on Valentine’s Day would be a memoir from a Korean woman about what it would be like growing up in America as a child of immigrants, but here we are. Lee has a powerful voice and an even more powerful storytelling capability that causes you to reflect on not just your childhood, but your parents’ childhood as well. As a daughter to Vietnamese immigrants, I connected to this memoir more strongly than I thought I would and even realized that some of the things that I thought of to be “okay” is actually not. This memoir shows strong allyship between the minority races, particularly Asian American & Black American, and explains how we should band together to beat white supremacy. It also teaches you to show grace towards yourself and your family, which I definitely needed when reading such an emotional book. Maybe I am a Grace Lee, but I’m glad to see some of my thoughts on paper when I never thought it would be.