Minor Feelings

-
    Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong changed my perspective on the importance of literature and writing about race. Before reading Minor Feelings I felt a bit of distance between the literature that I had previously read on the Asian experience in America. The stories were always told by children of non-immigrant Chinese parents, growing up in the Chinatowns of America.The idea of having a generational barrier between the kids and the parents, and the divide between unfamiliar American ideas and the familiar Chinese tradition was bogus. However, Minor Feelings was a fresher take on the Asian experience, with Cathy Park Hong immediately echoing a lot of the doubts I had about Asian literature in America. It introduced a flavor of the Asian experience that I had grown up with, immigrant parents who weren't always fully integrated into American pop culture and customs.
    
    The book also sparked a conversation I had with my sister, who had actually also read Minor Feelings. I had forgotten, but my sister actually recommended Minor Feelings to me earlier in the year after she had heard a talk by Cathy Park Hong. She also never felt this represented in a book about the Asian American experience and was shocked at the parallels that she felt in her own life. The experiences from Cathy Park Hong's childhood and her experiences as a young adult really spoke to where my sister is now. She apparently also has a signed copy of the book by Cathy Park Hong.


.




Comments

  1. William Dong's BlogDecember 15, 2024 at 1:53 PM

    Hi Jonathan! I also found it really refreshing reading Minor Feelings and its various perspectives and anecdotes used to highlight a perspective of Asian Americans. It's also so cool how your sister got a signed copy of Minor Feelings. Really nice blog!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anusha GuptaDecember 15, 2024 at 6:18 PM

    Jonathan,
    I was so glad to (finally) not see any economics or swimming references in this blog post (just kidding!). It's so extremely cool your sister has a signed copy of the book. It's great that you are able to relate with Minor Feelings in ways you could not with other Asian American books you've read (like ABC...). Your blog definitely makes me want to read Minor Feelings in the future!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Awareness In Water

-
 David Foster Wallace’s speech, “This is Water”, advocates for an awareness of our consciousness and perspective in day-to-day life. He claims that avoiding our “self-centric” nature and focusing on more positive alternatives keeps us grounded and allows us to master our thinking. When reading this speech for the first time I drew immediate parallels to my journey as a swimmer. The time consuming nature of the sport and the consistent repetition of spending 2 hours a day staring at the black line at the bottom of the pool, reinforces the “day in, day out” mentality. My coach would impart various sayings to us as well, unlike Wallace however, my coach takes joy in being the older fish. The most impactful adage that my coach has said, and relates closest to Wallace's awareness, is to stay in your lane.  When he first said it to me as a starting swimmer, it was probably to avoid me constantly messing around with others or being too rowdy in the pool, just “stay in my own lane” an...
Read more

Nature vs. Nurture

-
Image
  A topic explored throughout The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui is the idea that our circumstances often shape who we become later in life. This theme serves as an extension of the nature vs. nurture debates, where people wanted to see whether a person's genetic disposition or environment had a greater effect on their life. Although the consensus is that both factors play a vital role in a person's development in life. I share a view, and I believe Thi Bui would agree, that nurture plays a bigger role in a person's life than nature does. To understand this complex relationship between nature vs. nurture, I believe that this debate is best represented in terms of supply and demand. Although some might object saying how economics, a field dedicated to the study of money and finance, allows for the representation of this nuanced situation. The truth is economics, although often associated with money, is more the study of people and how they make the many decisions that they e...
Read more

A Limited View on Price Controls

-
Image
     Henry David Thoreau opens his essay on civil disobedience with the aphorism, “That government is best which governs least” and asserts the importance of a limited government that allows the people to decide what's best for them. Whether this statement is true politically is often a topic of debate, economically, however, this statement could not be more final. In most cases, the producers and consumers determine the most efficient equilibrium price and quantity of any good without government intervention. This economic truth is soon cast away by politicians, hoping to increase their own political clout, by placing price ceilings on goods and preventing the mechanisms of the economy to self-regulate. Placing a price ceiling on a good and expecting the price of a good to decrease without adverse effects is similar to declaring cancer illegal and expecting that all cancer patients become cured the next day. When polled, economists largely agree that rent control negativ...
Read more