I listened to Jay Caspian Kang’s book on Asian American identity, The Loneliest Americans. I’ve read some of his journalistic work. This is a lot like that, for better and for worse- what happens when you send a feature writer to do… ome other kind of writer’s job. A historian? I don’t know. Kang’s prose is good. I don’t think he’s bullshitting us. And, of course, I’m white. I am not Asian. I can’t speak to his reflections on the Asian or Asian-American experience from a place of my own experience.
late comment (it's been a long week), but it's interesting to consider the book this could be and isn't. it sounds like the author is able to turn his outsider state as a philosophical writer into disaffected moralism because he's writing in a chiefly synchronic mode. but a diachronic story of Asian America, even the one you get from PBS documentaries and kids books, is incredibly rich and would put the author's outsider state in a different light.
very helpful -- do you have recs for a reading list for a better historical reading list for jay caspian kang? i haven't read his book, though it's been on my list for a while. I imagine I have a lot in common with him, as far as feelings, and resentments, but am not sure -- though likely those commonalities have to do wit why i've felt like but then haven't felt like reading his book.
I feel a little defensive of your kerouac call out though; stylistically there really isn't a good place to arrive as an outsider, except as an exception; and most of us just can't manage that.
Though I also take your point about taking the role of an exception due to other roles being unappealing… arguably, the book is best as a gallery of the types of Asian — the Asian-American radical, the good multicultural liberal, the worker bee, the nostalgist, the MRAzn, the nationalist — he feels he can’t be and generally doesn’t want to be.
I’m afraid I don’t know the literature on Asian-American history well beyond a few exam list favorites: Erika Lee’s “At America’s Gates” (haven’t read her big history of Asian America), “The Color of Success” by Ellen Wu, various Ronald Takakis. Madeline Hsu’s “Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home” is good, but very much focused on the 19th century. For all I know, there’s been great advances in the subfield that have kicked our ass! I wouldn’t say Kang’s book is all bad. Could be a decent starting point- if nothing else, other people with an interest in the question have likely read it so it might make for a reference point.
For what it’s worth, it’s Kang who said he realized he wasn’t Kerouac- and that trying to be Kerouac is silly for more or less anyone, of any race. I’m glad he’s Kang instead- whatever criticisms I have of this work, I’ve no doubt he’d do a better job than the old beat (who was fine on his own).
late comment (it's been a long week), but it's interesting to consider the book this could be and isn't. it sounds like the author is able to turn his outsider state as a philosophical writer into disaffected moralism because he's writing in a chiefly synchronic mode. but a diachronic story of Asian America, even the one you get from PBS documentaries and kids books, is incredibly rich and would put the author's outsider state in a different light.
very helpful -- do you have recs for a reading list for a better historical reading list for jay caspian kang? i haven't read his book, though it's been on my list for a while. I imagine I have a lot in common with him, as far as feelings, and resentments, but am not sure -- though likely those commonalities have to do wit why i've felt like but then haven't felt like reading his book.
I feel a little defensive of your kerouac call out though; stylistically there really isn't a good place to arrive as an outsider, except as an exception; and most of us just can't manage that.
Though I also take your point about taking the role of an exception due to other roles being unappealing… arguably, the book is best as a gallery of the types of Asian — the Asian-American radical, the good multicultural liberal, the worker bee, the nostalgist, the MRAzn, the nationalist — he feels he can’t be and generally doesn’t want to be.
I’m afraid I don’t know the literature on Asian-American history well beyond a few exam list favorites: Erika Lee’s “At America’s Gates” (haven’t read her big history of Asian America), “The Color of Success” by Ellen Wu, various Ronald Takakis. Madeline Hsu’s “Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home” is good, but very much focused on the 19th century. For all I know, there’s been great advances in the subfield that have kicked our ass! I wouldn’t say Kang’s book is all bad. Could be a decent starting point- if nothing else, other people with an interest in the question have likely read it so it might make for a reference point.
For what it’s worth, it’s Kang who said he realized he wasn’t Kerouac- and that trying to be Kerouac is silly for more or less anyone, of any race. I’m glad he’s Kang instead- whatever criticisms I have of this work, I’ve no doubt he’d do a better job than the old beat (who was fine on his own).