Welcome to Litsy!

This is a must read. Such an incredible dive into being Asian American. With a focus on art, and what she describes as the invisible area between Black and White America.

Park Hong is a poet and her writing shows. It is not overwritten but is very well told.

4/5 ?

A very honest, important and relevant book. I was able to relate to a lot of her personal stories. I, myself, have "struggled to prove myself into existence" and have felt that "I just don‘t look the part." It's not a perfect book but I'm very glad I read it. ?

#AdventRecommends December 14th

Part memoir and part the history of Asian Americans in USA.

I finally finished last month‘s #shesaid pick. Some essays were better than others but it made me realize how many stories I have not read by Asian American authors. The author highlighted the continued racism and micro aggressions she has experienced throughout her life. It‘s another book to make me think & reflect about the experiences that others have. Another good book as I continue on with my Antiracism and examining Jedi principals (justice

While I liked this book, I enjoyed the essays where she was writing about society more than the long autobiographical section where she talks about her college friends. I understand that she was using them to make some points, but the section felt too long. The discussion of the poet, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, near the end was really interesting and sad. #SheSaid

Thanks for another great pick #SheSaid, I really enjoyed this book that is both a memoir, but also dove into the Asian American experience in America. She discussed her own education, friends, other artists and poets, but also always the undercurrent of pressure to excel and yet to be silent and not seen while highlighting the often forgotten or purposefully silenced history.

Some essays were more compelling than others, but overall, thought-provoking. I got a really late start on this month's #SheSaid but finished up yesterday. @Riveted_Reader_Melissa

Hello #SheSaid. Hope you are having a good weekend!

I don‘t know where this month has gone, but I‘ll be sad to see this book read end.

How did you make out with the last two chapters?
How did you feel about the book overall?
Are you ready for the next book? 😉

Just a Reminder Next Up: In My Own Moccasins by Helen Knott

This book is beyond amazing: profound, lyrical, breathtaking,passionate,inspirational,provocative,enlightening - an exploration of what it means to be & feel Asian American, elusive & denied. #shesaid

#vietnamwar #unholyalliance #shesaid

#shesaid #YokoOno #ghostliness #justanotherasianwomen
The essay “Portrait of an Artist”, expanded my world view. For me it was heartbreaking, challenging, & thought provoking. It is staying with me.

Cathy Park Hong explores the question of why poet Theresa Hak Kyung Cha‘s violent death-she was raped then strangled-was treated so quietly,often not written or talked about.Was it Korean culture?Why didn‘t anyone look into trial records?Talk to her family?The author began to investigate,with the hope of bringing Cha to life,to rid the world of Cha‘s “ghostliness”.

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/theresa-hak-kyung-cha-dictee-essay/

Really worth reading: told a friend of Asian heritage that I haven‘t read a book that deconstructs racism against Asian people in 20 years. Seven essays: ones I liked best were the ones that looked at history and structure of oppression, how racism against Asians contrasts and intersects with that against Black people, the role of North Americans in various wars against Asia, and how racism intersects with sexism.
#SheSaid
#Nonfiction2022 Free

I loved this.

Mostly memoir and we get her family history and her relationship with her friends, but I loved how she also talked about Asian American history, art and literature.

Particularly the second to last chapter about the artist and poet Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. And the last chapter talking about activist Yuri Kochiyama

#SheSaid
#DoubleSpin August

Hello #SheSaid!

I‘m a bit behind this week, I really got a lot from Bad English, but I haven‘t quite finished An Education yet. How is everyone else making out with this book, this week‘s essays, life and reading in general.

Hello #SheSaid! Hope you are all having a good week.

Although I‘m not sure how we got to the middle of the month already 🤷‍♀️

I‘m still really enjoying this one, I love how her train of thoughts go and where it takes us. I‘m listening on audio, which she reads and it‘s great, but I do feel like I‘ll need to go to the ebook at some point to highlight things.

How‘s everyone else doing? Thoughts? Likes or dislikes?

To grow up Asian in America is to witness the humiliation of authority figures like your parents and to learn not to depend on them: they cannot protect you.

#SheSaid

#SheSaid

I didn‘t know this about Rankine‘s book.

#SheSaid

#TwoforTuesday

1. Little Women - nostalgic as my 3 sisters & I had the 4 Madame Alexander dolls of the Little Women & we played with them, dramatizing the original stories & imagining new ones. I was Jo with my Doll.
2. Minor feelings Korean cognitive dissonance

Powerful and beautifully written! This book of essays on the poet/writer‘s reflections on her Asian American experiences is wonderful.

Perfect read for my own reflection on the power of words before the school year starts. 💗 Thanks for moving it up on my tbr list, @Riveted_Reader_Melissa

Hello #SheSaid!

What a different vibe from our last book, not sure how I like it overall yet, but the change of voice is welcome to me at least.

With that being said, she still has managed to talk about a lot of important subjects from a very personal POV in this opening chapter. And I‘m kind of put off by the idea that poetry is “less-than” if it‘s personal or has identifiers in it… who decided that and what were they thinking 🙄

Stalking Litsy way too early on a Sunday morning (for my time zone) because the books for #SundayBuddyRead and #SheSaid were just so freaking good this week! I can‘t wait to hear what others thought…

Finished the first 2 rows this past week. It‘s been brutally hot & humid so I have been in our air conditioned living room most days!
Reading the bottom row.
#sundaybuddyread #shesaid

@riveted_reader_melissa is hosting #shesaid buddy read of the tagged book and corresponding schedule. Let her know if you want to be included.

Sorry for the late schedule post #SheSaid…. But here it is, the new schedule!

Thank you so much, @Rachel.Rencher ! ❤️ It was such a delight to receive our packages today, and we had so much fun opening them and comparing teas and stickers. And what a perfect book choice for me! Littens, definitely check out Rachel‘s TikTok to see how absolutely beautifully these books are wrapped! Her TikTok is bookishcouple ❤️📚

This is the first book I‘ve read centered on AAPI experiences. How often do we really have this conversation? Not enough. The author shares her experiences with racism in America and how it intersected with her education, her dreams, and more. She also talks about assimilation, and the pressure to be good enough, the right kind of AAPI. Highly recommended.

1. Minority experience in the US
2. To get outside my own limited perspective
3. Tagged book is on my #roll100 list
#sundayfunday
Thanks for the tag!

Great book! Lots of topics and interesting people to look deeper into!

I'm actually not going to recommend this #audiobook. There's something about the author's delivery that I found incredibly distracting. The content, however, is really great. So, read the book, definitely. There is an essay on Theresa Cha that basically sells the whole book, IMO. But skip the audio.

This was the bonus October pick for my IRL book club.

#BookSpinBingo square 1
@TheAromaofBooks

Began this tonight, but stopped to take a breath. It‘s tearing me up- white privilege/guilt inside me for all our country‘s immigration/racist/western imperialist policies & actions?My grandparents came from Canada before the Great Depression.My Irish side came during the potato famine. We are from the western part if the globe, not eastern,southern hemispheres. #literati #meganrapinoe
The two of Megan‘s books are heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

#bookmail #literati #roxanegay #nineeleven #Literati #meganrapinoe
On my porch today: October picks for #literati & a book on 9/11. Looking forward to reading them.

Sharp, insightful & witty autobiographical essays about political, social & economic issues like structural oppression, self-hatred & the struggle to write as an individual—not as a representative of all Asian Americans. I took particular notice of her thoughts on non-African American use of AAVE: “instead of decolonizing English, we are carving English up into nation states.” Excellent #audiobook read by the author.

Poetry is a forgiving medium for anyone who‘s had a strained relationship with English. [… It‘s] an optimal form to explore the racial condition because our unspeakable losses can be captured through the silences built into the lyric fragment.

It‘s as if readers relish white male writers behaving badly, but they demand that minority writers must always be good. And because of this, we put our minor feelings aside to protect white feelings.

I‘m taking an intensive ten-week online natural dye course so I‘ve had less time for Litsy lately. I‘ve tagged my current audiobook, because #audiocrafting. 😊

As a biracial half-Asian I‘ve never felt like I could identify with the umbrella term “Asian American,” but even Cathy Park Hong, a monoracial Korean American, feels uneasy identifying with this collective “we,” when Asian Americans are such a diverse pluralism that it‘s difficult to delineate what “we” even means. Hong‘s provocative book challenges cultural notions of Asian identity, including her own.🏮#mayreads2021

”How can I write about us living together when there isn‘t too much precedent for it? Can I write about it without restoring to some facile vision of multicultural oneness or the sterilizing language of virtue signaling? Can I write honestly? Not only about how much I‘ve been hurt but about how I have hurt others?”

This was a well written and thought provoking read. I have to admit that I liked the first half more than the second half- they are very different- but that could‘ve been me reading with my own agenda.

So, this book was all the things I‘d heard it was. It was fire, yes. It was incisive, yes. And there is an element of speaking truth to power that feels important, but I think what feels most radical about it to me are the times when it feels like it‘s completely ignoring the white gaze. I‘m glad that this book exists.

I don‘t often read multiple books at once but I‘m making an exception here.

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong discusses both her life as a Korean American and the realities of being Asian in the USA. Overall, I found the collection of essays interesting and I definitely learned a lot while reading.

I struggled with this book. It was engaging and well written but at times relentlessly academic in its discussion of art, writing and philosophy, which sometimes felt hard to follow amongst the other contexts of the book (mainly historical and autobiographical.) Its definitely an important read, but maybe better suited to the classroom environment.

I learned so much from this book. The author‘s honesty about her own struggles with racial identity were eye opening. I also appreciated her use of story about other Asian Americans and their experiences.

Listened to this on audio and absolutely loved Hong‘s perspective and observations. Not all of the essays clicked but such a thought provoking compilation.

I read this book because a podcast that I love encouraged its listeners to read the book together. I‘m glad I did! Very interesting, well-written essays.

"Suddenly Americans feel self-conscious of their white identity and this self-consciousness misleads them into thinking their identity is under threat. In feeling wrong, they feel wronged. In being asked to be made aware of racial oppression, they feel oppressed."

It's hard to put together my thoughts coherently enough on this essay collection for a review. I'll leave it simple: well-written, powerful, insightful, and an essential read.

Minor Feelings is a must read. All the essays are powerful, especially Bad English and Portrait of an Artist. Cathy Park Hong and Chanel Miller talked about “Making art out of Grief” for Glamour which I also highly recommend:
https://www.glamour.com/story/cathy-park-hong-chanel-miller-in-conversation