A Reckoning on Race and the Asian Condition
While experiencing a depressive episode, the author, Cathy Park Hong, had to go to Wyoming to give a poetry reading. She is a poet, but these are not events she enjoys, even in happier times.
Reading her work to the audience, she felt newly conscious of her lack of stage presence. Asians in general, she thought, just don’t make a strong enough impression for this sort of thing.
They don’t even make a strong enough impression, in fact, to be thought of as a minority in the same way as Black people. Asian people are sometimes thought of as post-racial – but often that just means they’re ignored.
The reading was not a success. When she finished, everyone hurried to leave, including Hong.
The key message here is: Asian Americans exist in a purgatorial state, neither Black nor white; their own identity is poorly defined.
On her way back to New York, Hong received a call from her therapist. Hong had sought out a Korean American, like her, and they’d had one session. She was keen to carry on.
But she was disappointed. The therapist was cutting her off. The only explanation given? They weren’t right for each other.
Her mind flashed back to a visit to a busy Vietnamese nail bar at an Iowa mall. She was given a pedicure by the owner’s unenthusiastic teenage son, who grimaced at her, squatted down, and scalded her feet with hot water. He dug the nippers in sharply. She told him to be softer; he dug in harder. It was agony.
Despite their dissimilar family backgrounds and levels of privilege, Hong and the scowling pedicurist shared a sense of self-hate and shame. They were like two equal forces pushing against each other.
Being Asian in the United States is complex. In 2017, a video went viral of David Dao, a 69-year-old Vietnamese American, screaming in pain as he was violently forced out of an overbooked plane.
The media portrayed Dao as an everyman, as if his Asianness were irrelevant. But what memories did the incident spark in Dao’s mind? He’d fled Saigon in 1975, at the end of the Vietnam War.
Some people claim Asians are doing so well in America, they’re “next in line to be white.” But aren’t they more likely to disappear – to lose their sense of identity? Perhaps they really are quietly assimilating into American society. But isn’t that the same society that ripped their homelands apart and uprooted their families?
Minor Feelings (2020) is poet Cathy Park Hong’s searing account of life as an Asian American. Drawing on her own experiences alongside penetrating insights, it paints a picture of the purgatorial status that Asian Americans still face.
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.
Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.
Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.
Hol dir mit Blinkist die besten Erkenntnisse aus mehr als 7.000 Sachbüchern und Podcasts. In 15 Minuten lesen oder anhören!
Jetzt kostenlos testen
Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
