A review by mitchellkeo
Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir by Eddie Huang

3.0


Take a seat, because I have a LOT of thoughts on this one. Whew.

I gave this three stars not because I don’t fuck with it. Mr. Huang, if you’re reading this somehow, I actually fuck with it heavy. Your entire narrative of feeling like the “outcast Asian” and being stuck between “not being Asian enough” and “not being American” is something that resonated with me to my very core.

The memoir deals out Mr. Huang’s very raw opinions and social commentary on race in America, growing up as an Asian American under the model-minority mold and bamboo ceiling, and the struggle of finding an identity when every corner you turn to it’s another dead end. I loved that about this book and found myself saying “hell yeah brother” more times than I can count. I’ve bookmarked and highlighted more times in this book than most any other book I’ve read because I felt challenged by Mr. Huang, which I value.

Mr. Huang also does an absolutely phenomenal job at discussing cultural food and its impact on conversations regarding race and traditionalism. I learned much, much more about cultural dishes and their impact from this book than I ever had watching Food Network.

Yet I couldn’t bring it to more than 4 stars, because while Mr. Huang said many things I loved, he also said many more things that did not sit well with me.

Mr. Huang will sometimes engage in dialogue that seems like internalized self hatred of being Asian. There’s a lot of sections that just scream “I’m a DIFFERENT Asian from all the other Asians!” and it especially made me frown when he bragged about making Asian jokes for a crowd of black people during a stand up routine for laughs. Yikes. It seems like the narrative was “I was rejected by my own people so I tried really hard to be accepted and enjoyed by another race that wasn’t white people.” Like come on dawg, you really gotta clown your own people like that for some clout? Maybe I got it all fucked up. Lemme know otherwise.

The way he writes is very off putting too. Mr. Huang is a writing paradox. He is a very educated and well written man, I will give him that credit. And in the next chapter he’s writing about shawties and using oldhead misogynistic jargon. Maybe that’s just the way he wants to let himself be translated. Throughout the book he makes it very clear that no matter how educated, how successful he gets, he doesn’t forget his roots and stays true to where he came from. But man, you gotta work with the times bro.

Again, I will give credit where credit is due. Mr. Huang is very passionate and informed about the Asian American experience and how he wants his experience to be a footprint for the generations after him. His knowledge of food, hip hop, and culture is impressive and are good takeaways. Hell, I’d love to kick it with him over some Heineken and talk about the state of hip hop and politics. I’d be down for that.

But a lot of people are gonna be offended and put off by this book. Shit, if you can’t hang, then you won’t get it. I wouldn’t recommend this book as the book for an outsider to read to understand the racial and social commentary of being an Asian American. But I grew up as an Asian in the hood of Houston, and I felt this shit. And if you’re a person of color that needs a voice to say the shit that you experienced, this is the book for you. It’s crude, it’s offensive, hell it’s even arrogant, but it’s real. And I know Mr. Huang wouldn’t have wanted it to be anything less.