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Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
This is not an easy read but it is poignant, thought provoking and timely. Through a series of essays, Cathy Park Hong tackles the difficulties of navigating the Asian American experience backed up with a historical context of racial discrimination as well as an honest depiction of how Asian Americans are made to feel to this day. It doesn't purport to speak for everyone but rather expose some rather unnerving and uncomfortable truths specifically the continuing struggles with identity and belonging. The model minority is a myth and as a group we are continually marginalized and this is made clear by all the racially based and sometimes very violent attacks against Asians being blamed for COVID-19 that are still going on. This book brought back some very complex personal feelings for me.
Notable passages:"For as long as I could remember, I have struggled to prove myself into existence.""In the popular imagination, Asian Americans inhabit a vague purgatorial status: not white enough nor black enough; distrusted by African Americans, ignored by whites, unless we're being used by whites to keep the black man down.""Most Americans know nothing about Asian Americans. They think Chinese is synecdoche for Asians the way Kleenex is for tissues."
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