<p>Who is the author of Minor Feelings?</p>

<p>Cathy Park Hong is the author of Minor Feelings.</p>

Society & Culture

Minor Feelings Book Summary - Minor Feelings Book explained in key points

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Minor Feelings summary

Name: Minor Feelings
Rating: 3.8 (51 reviews)
Author: Cathy Park Hong

Cathy Park Hong

A Reckoning on Race and the Asian Condition

3.8 (51 ratings)

21 mins

Brief summary

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong is a powerful essay collection that explores Asian American identity and the complex emotions that arise from it. Through personal stories and cultural analysis, Hong exposes the racial barriers and ingrained prejudices that continue to affect Asian Americans today.

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Culture Alternative Perspectives Asian History US Politics US History Race

Table of Contents

Minor Feelings
Summary of 6 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 6

What’s in it for me? Learn about the reality of being Asian in the US today.

What does it mean to be Asian American?

Despite a vast recent literature on race and racism, there has been relatively little written on this subject – a fact that perhaps tells its own story.

So often, Asian Americans are held up as a model for immigrants to follow – hard-working, polite, almost invisible. But that sort of stereotyping does damage.

The poet Cathy Park Hong, whose family is from Korea, has lived this reality. In these blinks, you’ll learn about her experiences, as well as her powerful insights into the wider Asian American condition.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

what the author learned from comedian Richard Pryor;
why she couldn’t get on with The Catcher in the Rye; and
what she thinks when people say Asians are “everywhere.”

Asian Americans exist in a purgatorial state, neither Black nor white; their own identity is poorly defined.

While experiencing a depressive episode, the author, Cathy Park Hong, had to go to Wyoming to give a poetry reading. She is a poet, but these are not events she enjoys, even in happier times.

Reading her work to the audience, she felt newly conscious of her lack of stage presence. Asians in general, she thought, just don’t make a strong enough impression for this sort of thing.

They don’t even make a strong enough impression, in fact, to be thought of as a minority in the same way as Black people. Asian people are sometimes thought of as post-racial – but often that just means they’re ignored.

The reading was not a success. When she finished, everyone hurried to leave, including Hong.

The key message here is: Asian Americans exist in a purgatorial state, neither Black nor white; their own identity is poorly defined.

On her way back to New York, Hong received a call from her therapist. Hong had sought out a Korean American, like her, and they’d had one session. She was keen to carry on.

But she was disappointed. The therapist was cutting her off. The only explanation given? They weren’t right for each other.

Her mind flashed back to a visit to a busy Vietnamese nail bar at an Iowa mall. She was given a pedicure by the owner’s unenthusiastic teenage son, who grimaced at her, squatted down, and scalded her feet with hot water. He dug the nippers in sharply. She told him to be softer; he dug in harder. It was agony.

Despite their dissimilar family backgrounds and levels of privilege, Hong and the scowling pedicurist shared a sense of self-hate and shame. They were like two equal forces pushing against each other.

Being Asian in the United States is complex. In 2017, a video went viral of David Dao, a 69-year-old Vietnamese American, screaming in pain as he was violently forced out of an overbooked plane.

The media portrayed Dao as an everyman, as if his Asianness were irrelevant. But what memories did the incident spark in Dao’s mind? He’d fled Saigon in 1975, at the end of the Vietnam War.

Some people claim Asians are doing so well in America, they’re “next in line to be white.” But aren’t they more likely to disappear – to lose their sense of identity? Perhaps they really are quietly assimilating into American society. But isn’t that the same society that ripped their homelands apart and uprooted their families?

As Richard Pryor’s stand-up routines show, race colors every aspect of a person’s life.

Later in her experience with depression, the author discovered the Black comedian Richard Pryor, and in particular his 1979 film Live in Concert. His daring performances helped Hong recover.

Pryor was a revolutionary for how frankly he talked about race. He made fun of the white people in his audience. He joked that, until he was about eight years old, people considered him merely a child; after that, he was labelled a “Negro.” He describes having a heart attack, and likens his angry heart to the police beating him.

Growing up in an Asian immigrant family is a particular, complex experience.

In the ninth grade, Hong’s English teacher was excited to introduce the class to J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye. The teacher thought they would all identify with the main character, Holden Caulfield, and his obsession with his lost childhood.

But Hong could only see an entitled prep-school teenager – and didn’t understand his idealized image of childhood. She had only ever wanted to grow up.

The author found her voice through her friends – as well as an adversarial relationship with the English language.

Hong was slow to learn English at first, because when she was young she was surrounded by bad English. At the time she was ashamed, but now she claims it as part of her literary identity.

She relishes bad English, and mocks the curious role of English as the neoliberal world’s lingua franca, or common tongue. She collects pictures of badly translated Asian signs, like the one that says, “Please no conversation, no saliva,” or the menu that advertises “roasted husband.”

The story of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha is a lesson in US attitudes toward Asian women.

One evening in November 1982, artist and writer Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was walking home from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where she worked. She was heading home to a building where, by chance, Hong would also live, 25 years later.

Her book Dictee had just been published – a fascinating and complex mixture of poetry and art. She was 31, at the start of her career. But she didn’t make it home that evening.

Even after all this time, Asian Americans have a conditional status in the United States.

It’s strange now to imagine that “Asian American” was once a radical term. It was coined in 1968 by students in California, inspired by the Black Power movement. Before that, the only collective term for people of Asian descent was “Oriental.”

Yet the term has been flattened by frequent use. Asian Americans today are often considered models of neoliberalism – committed to lifetimes of hard work to repay the debt of their parents’ sacrifices, and then to outshine them and earn even more.

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What is Minor Feelings about?

Minor Feelings (2020) is poet Cathy Park Hong’s searing account of life as an Asian American. Drawing on her own experiences alongside penetrating insights, it paints a picture of the purgatorial status that Asian Americans still face.

Minor Feelings Review

Minor Feelings (2020) by Cathy Park Hong is a thought-provoking exploration of the Asian American experience that challenges conventional narratives. Here's why this book is worth reading:

With sharp insights and personal anecdotes, it delves into the complexities of racial identity, microaggressions, and the struggle for belonging.
The book offers a nuanced perspective on issues like racism and class, providing a deeper understanding of the Asian American experience.
Cathy Park Hong's candid and compelling storytelling captivates readers, making the book a captivating read that defies stereotypes and sheds light on the often overlooked narratives of Asian Americans.

Who should read Minor Feelings?

Those looking to explore what it means to be Asian in the United States today
Memoir lovers
People who want to expand their understanding of racial issues

About the Author

Cathy Park Hong, whose family is from Korea, has published three books of poetry and is the recipient of writing fellowships including the Windham-Campbell Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Categories with Minor Feelings

Society & Culture Biography & Memoir

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