The Memoir & Poetry Spot
A snapshot review of a book related to the Non-fiction Feature
Also in this Weekly Bulletin:
The Non-fiction Feature: The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee
The Product Spot: Mooncakes
The Pithy Take
Minor Feelings is a collection of essays by Cathy Park Hong, a professor of creative writing at Rutgers. She expounds her views on a range of cultural issues, but it’s her brutal and crystallized observations of Asian American identity that reverberate most triumphantly. It’s like I went my whole life eating dumplings with teriyaki sauce and then I discovered the sharp, sour fumes of Gold Plum Chinkiang vinegar. Irreplaceable; there’s no going back. Hong doesn’t just remake the lens through which people view Asian American identity—she pounds it flat (regrets and self-angst and all), remolds it, and forms it anew—she creates something to be extolled.
Throughout my life, I had felt the weight of indebtedness. I was born into a deficit because I was a daughter rather than the son to replace my parents’ dead son. I continued to depreciate in value with each life decision I made that did not follow my parents’ expectations. Being indebted is to be cautious, inhibited, and to never speak out of turn. It is to lead a life constrained by choices that are never your own. The man or woman who feels comfortable holding court at a dinner party will speak in long sentences, with heightened dramatic pauses, assured that no one will interject while they’re mid-thought, whereas I, who am grateful to be invited, speak quickly in clipped compressed bursts, so that I can get a word in before I’m interrupted.
Minor Feelings
Author: Cathy Park Hong
Publisher: One World
Pages: 224 | 2021
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