Cathy Park Hong’s book, “Minor Feelings” is reviewed by NOISEmaker Anuska Dhar for our latest NOISE editorial book review. Hong writes, “I internalized their [Hong’s classmates] condescensions, mocked other ethnic poetry as too ethnicky. It was made clear to me that the subject of Asian identity itself was insufficient and inadequate unless it was paired with a meatier subject, like capitalism.” (16-17) Like Hong, I had subconsciously internalized the publishing industry’s catch-22: the only way to be successful as an Asian American writer is to leverage your own identity, but write about your identity too much and you are doomed to never be known as a “Writer” before being known as Asian American, as though Asian-ness is a shtick that one can take off at the end of a long work day. As though true enlightenment is devoid of the sticky reality of being Asian American.
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