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A review by 2amreader
The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang
1.0
This title is grossly misleading. Some essays touch on Yang's identity as Asian-American, but others do not. The title is a disgusting attempt to appropriate DuBois's famous text.
Next, in the essays that talk about Yang as an Asian-American man, he is misogynistic, whiny, and bitter. He is resentful toward Asian American communities: “Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the future. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility.” He is obsessed with picking up white women: “Yes, it is about picking up white women. Yes, it is about attracting those women whose hair is the color of the midday sun and eyes are the color of the ocean.” He talks repeatedly of becoming an American alpha male, even while acknowledging that "there is no masculinity whose constitutive predicate is not the domination of women.”
While the emasculation of Asian-American men is something I do not dismiss, his response is to hate women and fixate on white women. Throughout this whole collection of essays, he only mentions 2 Asian women: Amy Chua, author of the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, and Constance Wu, the actress who plays the mom in Fresh Off the Boat. Chua provides the context in which he talks about his relationship with his parents, mostly his father. And Wu appears in one small paragraph in the essay about Eddie Huang, chef and the inspiration behind Fresh Off the Boat.
It is clear that Yang hates himself. Now that I've read this book, I hate him too.
Next, in the essays that talk about Yang as an Asian-American man, he is misogynistic, whiny, and bitter. He is resentful toward Asian American communities: “Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the future. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility.” He is obsessed with picking up white women: “Yes, it is about picking up white women. Yes, it is about attracting those women whose hair is the color of the midday sun and eyes are the color of the ocean.” He talks repeatedly of becoming an American alpha male, even while acknowledging that "there is no masculinity whose constitutive predicate is not the domination of women.”
While the emasculation of Asian-American men is something I do not dismiss, his response is to hate women and fixate on white women. Throughout this whole collection of essays, he only mentions 2 Asian women: Amy Chua, author of the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, and Constance Wu, the actress who plays the mom in Fresh Off the Boat. Chua provides the context in which he talks about his relationship with his parents, mostly his father. And Wu appears in one small paragraph in the essay about Eddie Huang, chef and the inspiration behind Fresh Off the Boat.
It is clear that Yang hates himself. Now that I've read this book, I hate him too.