A reckoning on race and the Asian condition

Blurb:
"Chosen by the BBC, Florence Welch, The White Review, The New York Times, OnOther Magazine, TIME and the Guardian as a Book of the Year.

'Studded with moments of candor and dark humor shot through with glittering self-awareness'
The New York Times

'Cathy Park Hong has turned a sharp yet tender gaze on her own life and contradictions, all while probing and tearing apart accepted (and often lazy and ill-informed) notions of what it means to be Asian American in the twenty-first century... surprisingly funny ... one of my favorite reads this year'
Attica Locke, Author of Heaven, my home

'Hong is writing in agonized pursuit of a liberation that doesn't look white - a new sound, a new affect, a new consciousness - and the result feels like what she was waiting for. Her book is a reminder that we can be, and maybe have to be, what others are waiting for, too'
Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker"

The next chosen book for our Cultural Book Club at work. I'm curious...

06-July 2021
Well - this book didn't really grab me much. For this thin book I was thinking about just dropping the book astonishingly often... But I kept on reading....
In between the very (for me) boring passages and too much theoretical thoughts, there were indeed more interesting parts - as also the beginning. Even though I also can't really relate often. Anyway a few bits were nevertheless interesting.
In a nutshell.. I probably expected something else - so, not my cup of tea....


International Bookring:
1 - iiwi NL
3 - BookBirds
4 - echode US
5 - valpete US, can ship anywhere
6 - penelopewanders France - prefers to ship EU or UK

... and back to me

It was in the mailbox after work!

The problem with silence is that it can't speak up
I found this an impressive collection of essays. Cathy Park Hong speaks about how she experienced life as an Asian American in the US. She does not spare herself, like in the first essay where she talks about her depression. This makes her vulnerable and at times not very likeable.
We all have a personal story with a book. I wanted to read this because my brother was adopted from Korea when he was three. I was ten at the time. Although he hardly has any memory of being in Korea, he still felt this. As Cathy Park Hong describes in the last essay, which is why I keep returning to Seoul in my memories As she says in I think almost the last page Even if we have been her for four generations, our status remains conditional, belonging is always promised and just out of reach. I can relate to sentences as I always second guest myself, questioning why I was being paranoid.
Cathy Park Hong lives in a world where whiteness is the norm. I still see my life in relation to whiteness, she tells in the essay The end of white innocence. Here she talks about the current world of devide we live in. In feeling wrong they feel wronged. In being asked to made aware of racial oppression, they feel oppressed. We are to think about our white identity and this makes us feel our identity is under thread. I think that this is for a large part why we react as we react.
An insight also was One charecteristic of rascism is that children are treated like adults and adults are treated like children. I think we can't image the feeling of a child seeing their parent treated like a child. I think this can be something you take with you our whole life. Like ugly feelings, Minor Feelings are non-carthartic states of emotion with a remarkable capacity for duration.
I really liked the essay Bad English, where she tells about the relationship she has with the language, she did not learn till the age of five. In her life as a child in Koreatown English was always borrowed, from hip-hop to Spanglish to The Simpsons, she tells. The borrowed language became significant for her as a poet, which she does recognize as being privileged to be able to study. A study she talks about in 'An Education', a deeply personal story about three young people destined to become artists, and becoming friends, being sucked up by each other and repelled by each other. It is like a coming of age essay.
She had trouble finding her own voice, admitting what her own was. In the past, I was encouraged to write about my Asian experience but I still had to write it in the way a white poet would Something she recognized when reading the book Dictee for class. About the writer of Dictee, Teresa Cha, is the essay 'Portrait of an artist'. I really liked the first pages of this essay, there is a magnificed drive in this, whre you see Teresa Cha do her things and walk in the town, not knowing where this would lead to in the end.
The last chapter 'The indebted' is about post-colonialism and the efect this has had on her. The most damaging legacy of the West has been its power to decide who our enemies are, turning us not only against our own people, like North and South Korea, but turning me against myself.

The book has arrived! Thanks for sharing Mary-T, and passing along iiwi! Will journal again soon.

What is there to say other than I'm glad this book exists and I appreciate Cathy Park Hong's honesty. We need more books like this from diverse perspectives. I feel this book should sit on the shelf next to 'Interior Chinatown' by Charles Yu - which is fictionally saying some of the things that 'Minor Feelings' is saying here. Both books are probably up for being ridiculously "banned". No no no. These are essential.

Again, THANK YOU for sharing and I'm so sorry this is taking me so long to read and then mail. I'm still not sure when I will get a chance to get to the post office...

FINALLY mailed to echode. It was finally time to just throw some stamps on it! Sorry again for the wait and thanks for sharing

Book is now in my hands. Thank you for sending, BookBirds, and for your insights, all! Will attempt to have it read & traveling shortly...


**July 8th, 2022**

Well I was a little ambitious in thinking I could get this read quickly. Right out of the gate with the 1st chapter, I knew I was in for a re-awakening:
"We were here since 1587!... So what's the hold up? Where's our white Groupon?"
As someone who received her BA in American Ethnic Studies, with a minor in Women Studies, I am all too familiar with her rage and discomfort (some of which manifested physiologically into ulcers and other ailments among my 'Class of 2000' peers).
Considering the numerous charged topics covered here, it's actually quite a concise and approachable collection. I think this is owed to her poetic style and foundation in the arts, versus a strict academic argument-and-persuasion tactic. Hong is full of self-doubt, as is anyone who ______ while Asian. Not everyone can have the confidence of white men. And as anyone who's had to learn English as a second language will find, sometimes it's seriously lacking (English tuned an experience that should be in the minor key to a major key...as much an imposition on her consciousness as it was a form of expression).
America is hitting another growing pain as her status quo is taking a beating from all sides, this time from a group that was historically the quietest.
Conscription is every day and unconscious. It is the default way of life among those of us who live in relative comfort, unless we make an effort to choose otherwise.

Book now on the move!

USPS tracking #9549 0102 4411 2195 3580 83
ETA: Tues. 07/19/22

Received! Didn't remember that I signed up for this. I'll read it and send it on its way.

A series of essays that gave me insight how Asians feel as being a minority in a white world. I guess I was a bit surprised to learn how racism applies to more than the black race, since that hasn't been my experience living in the Bay area where Asians are almost the majority.

Sending it on to the next and last reader.

This was waiting for me when I returned from a short trip away. I have the impression I signed up for this a while ago, but look forward to reading it soon. (It will go to the back of the line though...).
Thanks so much for making this available and for sending (and including the book mark)!

This is here as a bookcrossing ring. I didn't really know what to expect, but was glad to be able to read these essays.
Through marriage, part of my family is Asian/ Asian-American and although aware of many of the issues, I appreciated a more in-depth discussion.
With Trump's rhetoric unleashing into public what previously was usually kept on the down-low, and incidents like the shootings of Asian women, I reached out to these close relatives, realizing we had never discussed what they must have experienced, living and growing up in Europe and the USA.
I remain astonished by the hierarchy and intricacies of racism, and continue to hope we can learn to appreciate the "other" as equally valid and worthy of respect. There would be much more to say.

This now leaves central France and heads up and over to Germany. Thank you for making this available. I wish everyone a happy, healthy and peaceful (!!) holiday season.

This book arrived safe and sound home. Thanks also for the nice greetings on the card, penelopewanders!

Thanks to all participants and your reviews! Merry Christmas and all the best for 2023! :o)

This is travelling now in the international Easter-Parcel and I hope it's your kind of reading food - Happy Easter! :o)

I've never heard about this title before, but it sounds interesting. I'll gladly broaden my horizon with this one. Thanks a lot dear Easter bunny ;)