Author: Joshua Martin

Railroad Standard Time
On page 2, the moment where the mother switches from Chinese to English, and the way the tone changes around that point is quite well conveyed. Specifically, the way the watch is described as having “turned to cheap.” It makes the importance of language very clear.

We begin to see elements of media, and the ways people connect with it in this story with mention of the “Chinatown book” on page 3, with reference that every example of them has the same things in common.

Media continues to play a role on page 4, with reference to people “learning English in a hurry from Daffy Duck.” This is especially interesting because the practice of learning English from consuming American media is something you still hear about today.

What is the significance of the railroad? We open on the railroad watch, and close on a mention of railroad tracks. Our perspective character and his grandfather both worked for railroads. Its in the title of the book even. For something to recur so many times I would think there’s another level of meaning to it that I’m missing.

The Eat and Run Midnight People
There’s more continuity between this and the previous story than I was expecting. The perspective, the style of writing, the railroad as a recurring element again. I had assumed these short stories would be more disconnected.

The title of this one refers to the character’s ancestry, of having come from “the dregs, the bandits, the killers.” (page 11) The way this is used is as something of a point of pride.

The sexual content in this story is overt, in a word. The way this is placed up against the railroad imagery we’ve been seeing so much of further suggests the importance of the railroad, although to what end I still don’t fully understand.

Like before we still have our character referring to older generations, his grandfather namely. While the previous story also mentioned children, it was more in passing and moreso to establish the fact that they are now gone. Here children are referred to more abstractly (“Listen children,” page 17), in the same manner as the grandfather.

The Chinatown Kid
The perspective change is immediately noticeable, if only for offering some of the changes I was expecting that the previous story did not.

I find the style of writing hard to follow but not unpleasant. When it comes to things written in this kind of stream of consciousness, breakneck pace I just kind of have to go along with it in a way that makes it very hard to stop and reflect at any point as opposed to just pushing forward. Rather train-like in fact.

That said having character names for the first time in this story makes things a little easier to track. Thankful for that at least.

Just as I was beginning to get used to our new perspective, it changes on page 31. We’re now back in first person (“my forehead… I’ve grown old.”) I’m immediately left wondering why, or if in fact this is a change and not a detail I missed earlier.

The Only Real Day
On page 47, Yuen mentions his boss as someone who is letting go of traditional ways, speaking only English and hiring American women to work at her restaurant. Yuen states that “people like her mean well, but don’t know what’s real and what’s phony.”

Page 63 has an interesting exchange between Yuen and Rose, a bit of a confrontation on Yuen’s feelings about her. Rose reveals some of her own motivation (“I’m just as much Chinese as you, but this is America”) while Yuen rejects her beliefs (“The truth is still the truth, in China, America, on Mars”).

Jimmy Chan’s explanation on page 69 of how Americans only “like the Chinese as novelties” bears some importance to the overall story. It fits in line with Rose’s efforts to Americanize herself, so as to be better accepted into American society, however slightly.

The constant struggle between Yuen and Dirigible to communicate is another way this story highlights the fractured relationship between different generations. Yuen speaks Chinese and doesn’t understand much English, while Dirigible speaks English but doesn’t understand much Chinese. This is most evident where Dirigible is trying to help Yuen through the immigrations office on page 74.

Yes, Young Daddy
Right away the use of Dirigible as a character again surprises me for the continuity between stories. I’m again wondering if I’m missing out on this kind of interconnectedness between the other stories and if it’s because I’m not paying close enough attention or if it’s just deliberately obtuse.

Following on from the last story, Dirigible’s grasp of the English language is immediately apparent in the response to his cousin. The tone reads as sort of disappointed that his cousin isn’t taking the care to learn the language the way he has.

On page 83, the line “Lena had such a happy way of writing her loneliness” is notable. For being a story largely made up of the communications between these two characters, and specifically the way Dirigible seems to look down on his cousin’s linguistic abilities, this line shows that even so, Lena is still perfectly capable of communicating what she’s feeling well enough for Dirigible to get the message.

How do you feel about the way the relationship between Dirigible and Lena is portrayed? Most striking to me is the way that the letters immediately following their visit almost completely brush past the incident, more than happy it seems to move on as quickly as possible.

“Give the Enemy Sweet Sissies and Women to Infatuate Him, and Jades and Silks to Blind Him with Greed”
At the top of page 100, “You really don’t know how Chinese you really are. That’s why I like you so.” What do you make of this quote? What does it say about Dirigible and the nature of this relationship?

What is the meaning of the title line, as it appears in the text on page 105, and what is its significance to Dirigible’s story at this stage?

The way that Dirigible conflates his experiences with Mrs. Hasman and Sharon seems like a kind of coping mechanism. He’s still dealing with a lot of complicated feelings about Sharon (“She had died at eighteen, not him,” page 107) and is trying to make sense of all that he feels towards her in his relationship with Mrs. Hasman.

The sort of seamless transition into a moment with Sharon and then back to the moment with Mrs. Hasman does an effective job at putting the reader in Dirigible’s place. The transition is hard to spot and creates an unclear sense of time and place in the story.

A Chinese Lady Dies
So, at this point Dirigible has been in these stories more often than not. If the idea is for him to be something of a central character here, I’m curious why we were left waiting so long before he was introduced. And again, I’m not convinced that I didn’t miss something in those earlier stories still that would better explain what keeps them in continuity with this whole section on Dirigible.

Lot of talk of machinery here, in a more vague, symbolic sense. Can’t help but be reminded of the train fascination in those earlier stories, as maybe an establishment for this theme to be built on.

The relationship between Dirigible and his mother seems like the most drastic generational gap in any of these stories. The whole time they’re talking past each other and only barely communicating. Despite all the words, it seems like they have very little to say, or at least any way of saying it effectively.

The technique that separates this story from the others is the frequent interjection of italicized portions throughout the text, that carry a more overtly fictionalized tone, as though of a movie the likes of which Dirigible references in the story. What is the effect of having these segments, and what does their contents add to the story?

The Sons of Chan
In keeping with the comparison with Dirigible and machinery in the previous story (it only just occurred to me as I wrote that that a dirigible literally is a machine), and the trains throughout the book, the perspective character using themselves as a radio antenna (page 131) brings this comparison of people and machines to its logical conclusion, with both now cooperating to fulfill their function.

Thinking about machines more generally now it comes to mind the historic use of automatons and robots as symbols for the labor class in fiction, and the likely racial makeup of those they stand in for. There’s also something of the model minority myth about this, that Asian-Americans are expected to function as efficient little machines for the ways that they are most often stereotyped.

Of course, as I finish writing that and keep reading Chin namedrops Frankenstein on page 133. Here I am in the last story of this book and just now starting to feel like I get it.

On page 143, the mention of Janet no longer being able to write her own name in her own language goes along with a lot of the themes of people becoming disconnected from their Chinese heritage in the book. Specifically, the way it deals with written communication bears similarities with Lena in the earlier story, although it was an incorrect form of the new language in that case and not a loss of the original language.

April 23
Come See the Paradise, 1990, dir. Alan Parker
1936, Little Tokyo
Lily, nisei, second generation, struggling with father’s expectations (arranged marriage)
Jack, union advocate, projectionist for Lily’s father
challenging traditions of older generations
relationships between Japanese and non-Japanese people
movie says Jack is “trying hard to understand Japanese customs”
what is their relationship based on? “Happiness, bravery”
elope to Seattle, marriage, Jack’s union activity lands him in jail, Lily returns to LA
not sure how they’re trying to make you feel about Jack’s choices
“don’t give me that Japanese shit”
internment
Jack’s activism parallels with Lily’s growing frustration in the camps
tone kind of all over the place from scene to scene
questionable happy ending

April 24
Verisimilitude – the appearance of being true or real
Fumiko Hayashida, Bainbridge Island
1990 Gulf War
1988 Amerasian Homecoming Act
1988 Civil Liberties Act (reparations)
Alan Parker: Mississippi Burning (1988)
“Mississippi Summer of 1964”
Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney

The High Heeled Shoes, A Memoir
What role does Margarita, the seven-year-old girl who brings flowers on page 2, play in this story? What significance does she have to the larger point the story is making?

The criticism of Gandhi is notable in the story for it being written in 1948, the year that Gandhi was killed. Gandhi and his beliefs are certainly not beyond reproach, but I had a perception of these criticisms as having developed over decades after his death, as more recent reevaluations. Knowing that this story, questioning his ideas, was produced in the same year the man died, is a good reminder that even in times where social norms were very different, people held and expressed ideas that would still be progressive today.

Seventeen Syllables
I’m not sure what purpose the visit with the Hayano family (beginning on page 9) serves aside from an early hint at tension between Rosie’s parents. Does this scene have another function in the story? Does it need one?

This story being the one that gives the book its title suggests some special significance about it. Why is it that this story is framed as “more important” this way, or do you agree that it is?

The Legend of Miss Sasagawara
Miss Sasagawara’s poem seems unquestionably important to the story. What is it that that the poem reveals, about its author or otherwise?

The only lasting relationship Miss Sasagawara has in the camp is with her father. We don’t see any interaction between the two of them, and yet their relationship is made a focal point in the ending. What did you think of the way this was handled? Does leaving this element almost completely unspoken make it more or less impactful?

Wilshire Bus
Esther in the story has to confront her own feelings about her ethnicity when faced with a man harassing a Chinese couple and finding her own first response to be something of a prideful feeling at the fact that she isn’t Chinese. This sentiment between people of different Asian-American ethnicities lies at the center of the story.

On page 37, the woman on the receiving end of the harassment is described as responding to Esther in a way that is “expressionless yet hostile.” What do you think of this moment between the two?

The Brown House
Similar to the previous story, this one touches on the issue of racism between marginalized groups in America. Mr. Hattori’s racism towards a black man is the critical moment where this comes up. Interestingly, Mrs. Hattori seems downright hospitable to the man by comparison.

The other core component of the story is Mr. Hattori’s treatment of his wife. It’s an abusive relationship to say the least. Yamamoto’s depiction of this relationship reads like a strong condemnation of what a woman is expected to put up with in her marriage.

Yoneko’s Earthquake
The title of the story refers to a moment wherein Yoneko undergoes something of a crisis of faith and decides she no longer believes in God. The reverse happens with Yoneko’s mother, who after having an abortion and then losing her son, begins attending church and establishes her faith. This would set the story up as one about how people handle matters of trauma differently, and how it affects their beliefs.

Given the likelihood that the ring Yoneko receives from her mother was in turn given to her by Marpo, its brief mention at having been lost in the end is part of a recurring series of symbols for the development of this relationship. The collie that is killed on the way to the hospital, without remark from anybody, similarly mirrors the abortion that the family silently endures.

Morning Rain
The idea put forward by the story that communication is “what living is” (page 58) is interesting. Would you agree with this idea?

This story is one of miscommunication between parent and child, representative of a growing distance between generations. The issue is particularly felt in the experience of nisei, as in this story, and the tension between keeping traditional values from your parents and assimilating into a new culture.

Epithalamium
What do you think of the recurring significance of literature in this book? In this story alone we have Madame Marie as an autobiographer, and Yuki thinking of poetry often. The title apparently refers to a poem written in celebration of marriage, all of that on top of earlier instances of literature serving as an element in several of these stories.

The feelings of doubt and anxiety brought on by the weight of your parents’ expectations play a large part in this story as well. Yuki marrying a non-Japanese man is one of several ways she feels she isn’t living up to the standards that were expected of her, bringing up again the tension between conforming to your parents’ culture and trying to form or fit into a new one.

Las Vegas Charley
On page 80, Charley comes to the conclusion that, given the choice, he would prefer to keep living in the camp. The inclusion of this perspective is an unusual one, as you almost always imagine that people would desire to be free, naturally. What is Yamamoto’s intent in writing the character this way?

In what must be the most recurring element in all of these stories, this is yet another tale of intergenerational relationships within a Japanese-American family. Rather than a child failing to meet their parents’ expectations however, this is a father who must struggle with the feeling of disappointing his son, reversing the roles from what we’ve seen before, illustrating that these relationships are not so simple as to all be the same.

Life Among the Oil Fields, A Memoir
The use of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in the story goes hand in hand with the Great Depression era that it takes place in. Yamamoto obviously does not mean to suggest that her brother was literally run down by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but what does her invoking their names insinuate?

Per the title, the oil derricks stand in as another symbol of the pursuits and lifestyles of the wealthy and powerful, the hardships that people faced when the Great Depression set in, and the people like Yamamoto’s family who had to live in the middle of it all and make the best of a very poor situation.

The Eskimo Connection
While being largely a story about a prison inmate, the story declines to detail in specifics what crime Alden may have committed, though Emiko speculates at times. What is the motivation for this decision, and how does it effect your reading of the character?

Yamamoto shows herself as being very forward thinking, especially for her time, throughout the book. Even in this story we get hints of a prison abolitionist’s mindset through Emiko. That being the case, the homophobia that arises in this story feels intentional, even if less is made of it compared to the other social issues being dealt with. Is this written for intended effect (what effect?), or is it possible that this really is just a hang up of the time period?

My Father Can Beat Muhammad Ali
Once again, we have here a story about the generational gap between traditional Japanese parents and their American born children. The mention of Muhammad Ali fighting a sumo wrestler is a particularly adept choice for this story, of one of America’s most revered athletes going up against an emblem of one of Japan’s oldest athletic traditions, unfairly as Henry would argue.

This story feels most similar to Las Vegas Charley, in that it tells of a father struggling to impress his children and dealing with the feelings of inadequacy he is left with in the wake of his failure.

Underground Lady
The racist inclinations of the titular character portray the realities of existing as a Japanese-American, that encounters like these will almost certainly occur at some point. Particularly the woman’s assumptions about the Onodera family, despite them apparently having been nothing but kind to her.

The other major element of the story is a commentary on homelessness and potentially mental illness as it’s treated in America. The woman is never stated outright to have a disability, only speculated, so that’s harder to speak to in this case, but the neglect of homeless individuals is a persistent problem in the country.

A Day in Little Tokyo
Chisato’s encounter with the one-legged man is written to be the focal point of the story. What significance did you get out of this moment between the two?

Chisato recalls people in the area of Little Tokyo that she knows but doesn’t feel especially familiar or comfortable with them herself, so much as they are merely family friends. She doesn’t seem to understand why they even are friends necessarily, despite knowing that they came from the same village in Japan as her own parents. This stages the story as something of a feeling of alienation from their heritage on the part of the children of Japanese immigrants.

Reading and Writing
The title of this story calls back to the importance of literature throughout the book. With that importance in mind, what do you make of Hallie’s illiteracy here, and what it represents in comparison to the many writers Yamamoto was herself writing about before?

Generations are the other consistent recurring element throughout the stories in this book. In this story this is best conveyed with Hallie and Angela, where in the end we see that Hallie was able to provide for her daughter the opportunities she lacked, with Angela visiting to show her diploma the very same day her mother dies.

 

April 16
Week 7: Korean Americans, Friday morning group presentations

41 interviews
28 (?) interviewees
Japanese American
Chinese          ”
Vietnamese   ”
Hmong           ”
Korean           ”
South Asian   ”
Filipino/a       ”
PI (Hawaiian)
Hapa

Age/Generation
Geography
Occupations
Gender
Sexual orientation

What’s missing?

Oral history/Asian & US history

bildungsroman – coming of age

API popular culture – produced by APIs
APIs and popular culture
”     in          ”             ”        – depictions, representations, stereotypes

Threads/themes/topics
Americaization
Culture/duality
Hybridity
Identity
Racism
Sacrifice
Generations
Family
American Dream
Trauma (individual/group)
Normalcy
Gender
Work
Education
Activism

Better Luck Tomorrow, 2002, dir. Justin Lin
four characters, Ben, Virgil, Daric, Han
selling cheat sheets progresses into selling drugs
“token Asian” on the basketball team, Ben quits after Daric’s “exposé”
Steve, private school, rich family, white girlfriend (cheating on Stephanie), “has it all,” still isn’t happy
Ben and Steve both envious of what the other has
Daric pulling a gun on Ryan, feelings of inferiority from racist treatment expressed through violence
Steve wanted to give his parents a “wake up call,” seems to want to show them their material possessions aren’t important, Daric suggests he feels his parents don’t pay enough attention to him
Daric incites the others to turn the plan around on Steve using their feelings that he looks down on them
Steve seems to have a better handle on things than the others, suggested at the party (“what did you think of Stephanie’s friend she brought to mini-golf,” even though Steve wasn’t shown to be aware that Daric was there, Daric doesn’t catch it)
Ben is still thinking of Daric’s article after Virgil’s suicide attempt

April 19
Emiko Omori, Rabbit in the Moon, 85 mins, 1999/2004
pareidolia
issei – Japanese immigrant
kibei – born in America, educated in Japan
nisei – born and raised in America, second generation
Omori’s mother died at 34, cremated, ashes lost
examination of the history of internment
Ueno, wrongfully imprisoned, protestor killed, reported as “celebrating Pearl Harbor” (very “Muslims celebrating after 9/11”)
rabbit/man in the moon as an allegory for country loyalty being presented as a choice when its not a choice at all
interned Japanese as hostages, for reprisal against any potential mistreatment of American POWs
“military necessity”
Japanese American Citizen’s League, “unquestioning loyalty to America,” encouraged full cooperation with the government
James Omura, Rocky Shimpo editor, supported draft resistance, jailed for six months
Tule Lake, where “disloyal” Japanese were sent, lasting stigma after the war ended
fear that complaints about internment would seem petty in the face of other atrocities committed during the war

Asian Americans as a Movement – Dale Minami
Can you think of other ways the Internet can be or has been used to “understand the commonalities” of being in a specific group as Minami describes on page 15?

From Toi Shan to the Olympic Peninsula Gateway – Ark Chin
I think it’s interesting that, despite all the negative experiences, Chin is still able to view his heritage as a benefit to living in America. Might be connected to the sort of “mental toughness” he says was expected of him by his father on page 20.

The Promise of America – Hoan Dang
On page 29, Dang describes the racism he experienced at Vanderbilt as not being “blatant.” This struck me as unusual, given that I would consider the open use of racial slurs as pretty blatant. What do you think of his assessment?

It’s About More Than Hitting the Books – Susim Chen
What do you make of Chen’s experience with “dressing up” for the first time in college on page 33(“I believe if you don’t have any makeup on, and you cut your hair short, people think you are not interested”)? Do you think she came away from that experience with the right ideas?

No Dating, Just Get Married – Qing Shan Liang
How do you feel about the marital system described of women agreeing to marry just to get to the United States? How do you feel about the change and development in this area Liang describes on page 43?

Making a New Life – Frank Bai
It was very enlightening to read about how tough it actually is to deal with the language barrier. It’s not something I often think about for being an English-speaking person in America, but the difficulty of getting by in a country where your language isn’t widely understood seems immense, and so many like Bai are willing to do it anyways.

Changing the Tide of History – Dale Minami
The question of whether or not interment could happen again in America is a poignant one given the actions and intentions of the current administration. Minami’s point on page 57 that it would be a matter of “political and economic circumstances,” not morality, that decides the viability of internment rings especially true.

Into the Governor’s Mansion – Gary Locke
The point about having role models in this section (page 68) is interesting, even if Locke doesn’t think of himself as a role model. How does this idea of having real role models for people factor into the way that we create diverse characters in fiction for the sake of representation?

Restaurant, Public Office, Even Bruce Lee – Ruby Chow
What’s with the stigma against Chinese opera people specifically, on page 72?

Grassroots Victories – Cheryl Chow
The intersection of racial and gendered stereotypes on page 79 shows what the experience of a Chinese American woman was like. What other dimensions of a person’s identity might further complicate their navigation of social situations as Chow describes?

Marriage and the Green Card – Shamita Das Dasgupta
This section highlights the issue of domestic violence as it affects the South Asian community. Thinking about issues like these in different frameworks is very helpful, as the specific power dynamics of a marriage to establish citizenship were not something that had occurred to me.

Building an Orphanage in China – Ark Chin
Do you agree with Chin’s assessment of the value of cultural identity on page 91? (“I feel very strongly that if you don’t really have a sense of identity, you don’t have this central focus, and the core values to a degree come from that.”) Where else might one derive their “core values,” and would these be better served if derived from a sense of cultural identity instead?

Cowboy from Japan – Hank Sasaki
On page 97, Sasaki talks about music in a way that really strikes true to me: “Country music is really white people music, but music is a global language, so if you’re writing good songs, they can touch everybody in the world.” The idea of music that transcends language is a powerful one, and it’s true that music can be effective even if it’s not in a language you understand.

Jimi Hendrix of the Ukulele – Jake Shimabukuro
The perception of the ukulele as a novelty or a toy as discussed on page 102 is especially interesting, because it’s a sort of association I recognized in myself as soon as I read it on the page. There’s not a lot of exposure to “sincere” ukulele playing in American pop culture.

The Fortune Cookies – Joann Lee
It’s notable that Lee mentions that the songs the group was singing “sounded pretty much white” on page 110. Despite featuring Chinese American singers and marketing themselves with that heritage in the group’s name (also worth mentioning the false notion that fortune cookies are in any way Chinese), the style they were really after was the predominant American style.

From Laos to Iowa – Steve Thao
How do you define the American Dream, as brought up on page 113? Have you ever considered how your vision of such a thing was influenced by your background and upbringing?

Harlan, Kentucky – Albert Lee
What is the significance of religion as a subject raised throughout the piece? Lee takes the time to specify his own beliefs, as well as both of his parents, and talks about the surprising number of Korean Americans he’s met that are Christians for the fact that it is a minority religion in Korea.

Growing Up in Los Angeles – Daniel Jung
The thing I notice in Jung’s responses is his tendency to say that he “never really thought about it.” What do you take away from this regarding Jung’s experiences?

Portland, Oregon – Jeff Andrada
The concept of there being different “degrees” of Asian American on page 130 is something I hadn’t considered. The idea that something like being able to speak a different language fluently would make one “more” Asian American is an interesting perspective from Andrada.

Growing Up in Hawaii – Jake Shimabukuro
On page 135, Shimabukuro describes writing music not just from a specifically Japanese or American perspective. What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing from a universal perspective, rather than writing from a specific background?

Between Continents – David Tang
Similarly, on page 141, Tang talks about how he doesn’t view himself as Asian or Asian American: “I think of myself as David.” His perspective, that his heritage is just one detail that forms the whole of his identity, is interesting, and I’d be curious to know what other people think of it.

Cultural Anchors – Laura Jung
Jung talks about feeling like there was “even segregation among the Asians” on page 146. I think this idea does a great job of breaking down the monolithic term “Asian American,” which almost suggests that all of these different people from different places and cultures are able to be grouped together by virtue of originating from the same continent, and the largest not incidentally.

Of Work and Family – Agnes Braga
The stereotype of Asian women as needing to be quiet and subservient, as mentioned on page 151, is one that consistently keeps coming up in the interviews with women in this book, illustrating the pervasiveness of this stereotype and ones like it.

An Editor of Entertainment News – Albert Lee
The way Lee talks about race in the entertainment industry at the bottom of page 156 raises some good points (“Race always plays a factor in how readers of a magazine or viewers of television see celebrity and how that informs their interest”).

Chinatown, New York – Corky Lee
Lee provides his thoughts on the sort of gentrification happening in Chinatown, starting on page 159, where the fact that tour buses stopped going to Chinatown leads to less money from tourism, which leads to people no longer being able to pay their rent, and thus a lot more apartments up for rent, and more non-Chinese people moving in.

Of Japanese Towns and Cultural Communities – Dale Minami
Minami references the growing popularity of Japanese aesthetics and ideas with non-Japanese people on page 164, referencing Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Girls, The Last Samurai, and Memoirs of a Geisha as results of this trend. He says, “Whether that has an impact on Japanese Americans or not I’m not sure.” What sort of impact might/do these things have on Japanese Americans?

Hmong Community – Steve Thao
This interview seems to emphasize the tensions between tradition and new ways of doing things in the Hmong American experience. Younger generations pushing back against the expected behavior of the older generations is a fairly universal thing, but it makes me think about how these things might be different for an APIA individual.

Vietnamese in Maryland – Hoan Dang
This interview was effective at highlighting the sorts of struggles that people are often faced with that aren’t seen or acknowledged by others. On page 178, the statement, “Oh, they’re Asians, they must be doing well, they don’t need assistance,” covers the assumption people have towards Asian Americans, as well as implies the stereotypes that are held regarding other minority groups.

Living Outside of Koreatown – Laura and Daniel Jung
This interview addresses peoples’ tendencies to stick within groups where they feel comfortable, most often groups of the same culture as their own. In this case the point is being made with newly arrived Koreans observed by Daniel, who would then go on to only speak Korean around other Korean people.

Claiming Space – Shamita Das Dasgupta
Dasgupta provides a great answer to how she identifies herself, saying on page 188, “We have to recognize that we have multiple identities, multiple nationalities, multiple ways of doing things.” This speaks to the complicated realities of human identity, and the fact that truthfully one label like “Asian American” can’t really speak to the whole of a person’s being.

Very Tough Times – Veronica Leung
The impact of an event like 9/11 on Chinatown truthfully isn’t something that had ever crossed my mind before reading this. If anything, it goes to show that there are always people on the margins of any moment or happening whose view of events is paid less attention to, if they get any at all.

New York’s Chinatown: Getting Back on Its Feet – Corky Lee
Reading these interviews, its striking that as much as the direct trauma of the event must have affected people, the failure of the systems in place to provide for people in the wake of 9/11 did plenty of harm to Chinatown. The lack of phone service for six months, the refusal by police to allow people into the area, and the lack of support from FEMA all contributed to the hardships Chinatown faced in the aftermath.

Within the South Asian Community – Shamita Das Dasgupta
The recurring question in this book of whether or not internment camps could happen again in America is really put into perspective on reading the treatment faced by South Asian people after 9/11. Given enough fear and racial resentment, I would certainly believe that internment camps could be a reality again in the future.

Reconnecting – Naomi McWatt
When McWatt describes shutting down to protect herself on page 211, she says she doesn’t know if it has anything to do with her being mixed or not. Does this seem like the sort of thing that would be picked up from the treatment she faced as a person of mixed race, or just an inherent trait without such a direct explanation?

Marriage – Gita Deane
On page 214, the statement “Our silence will also make them pay a price” is an especially powerful one. In cases like these, people tend to think that the active options are to take one side or another, but the choice to do nothing is a choice of its own. In scenarios where people with power and people with less are struggling against one another, doing nothing is to side with the powerful by default. This idea about political inaction deserves attention, so I was glad to see it here.

Being Asian, Being Gay – Albert Lee
Lee makes an interesting point about how his identity as a gay man somewhat eclipsed his identity as an Asian. In a case like this, it’s notable that Lee came away feeling that his being Asian wasn’t ever a problem. In the same way I can’t help but wonder if the persecution he faced for being gay eclipsed some persecution he may have faced for being Asian.

Adopted, from Seoul to New Jersey – Karl Ludwig
On page 233, Ludwig ascribes his choice of career to genetics, stating that his father was in the army, and thus that it must have influenced his own path as a police officer. Do you think this is actually the kind of thing that can be driven by genetic disposition?

Found – Kristen Houghton
Houghton’s struggle to reconnect with her biological family is a far cry from the sort of thing one expects from this kind of story. The Hollywood version of it that one might see would be a happy reunion with tears of joy, if there are tears at all. The reality is that Houghton has long since moved on and to some degree wanted things to stay that way and is now reluctant to reestablish a connection with her family.

Of Personal Challenges and Triumphs – Ark Chin
“The relationship between a man and his Chinese father” on page 248 was something to take in. Hearing Chin describe the somewhat cold nature of the usual relationship and the way that it changed between him and his own father was an effective window into this one aspect of the culture.

Journeys of Self Discovery – Candace Chin
The “internal personal space” metaphor that Chin uses on page 256 quite clearly illustrates the differences she sees between American people and Chinese people. Is this the sort of difference that one is more likely to pick up on for sharing aspects of both cultures?

Hapa with Strong Chinese Roots – Susha Pratt
Pratt’s story of trying to define herself as not fully Chinese and not fully American, but rather fully defining herself by being mixed, is a good choice to end this book on. It gets to the central idea of “Asian American” as an identity, that its not one or the other, but a unique thing of its own.