Oppression – …on the B.L.

Worth A Read Yes
Length 224
Quick Review The reality of existing as an Asian American encapsulated into a collection of essays by the remarkable Cathy Park Hong.

Reading Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong in front of the Asian Gardens in Des Moines, Iowa. | Top | Skirt | Sandals | Watch | Glasses

Asians have been a part of the fabric of the United States for as long as the country has existed. They have played a vital part in the establishment, growth, expansion, history, progress, and culture of the US. Yet, they are overlooked and forgotten. When they are remembered they’re often touted as the good immigrants because of their excellent assimilation. Cathy Park Hong explores the nuance of being Asian and American; of being immigrant and citizen; of being and excluded in Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning.

Asia is an expansive and diverse area of the world, but America has one word for the people of the region: Asian. It is just one of many ways America sweeps over oppression and racism with an optimistic view that does not mirror the reality Asian Americans live with. Hong explores the truth of her own minor feelings as a child and into adulthood.

Minor Feelings cuts to the core of racism and the inescapable psychological effects it has, “Racial self-hatred is seeing yourself the way the whites see you, which turns you into your own worst enemy. Your only defense is to be hard on yourself, which becomes compulsive, and therefore a comfort, to peck yourself to death.” Hong is acutely aware of existing as an Asian woman; her parents immigrated to the US from Korea. In her essays, she delves into her own feelings of shame and sadness while examining racial consciousness in America. Though the book is about the Asian experience in America, it speaks to the same feelings people of color experience on a daily basis.

Hong has a powerful command of language and uses it as more than a vessel for thoughts but as an art. By writing about racial consciousness, she helps empower generations of people who live with the same minor feelings as herself. Through lenses of history, art, psychology, femininity, friendship, and more, she creates a whole picture of being Asian in America. Her words can and should change hearts and minds by painting a picture of present and past realities.

I cannot begin to explain the impact of this small book. It is remarkable and moving. It hit close to home as I read it. One of my closest friends is Asian and does not fit what society believes Asian American women look like. I have watched her exist in a world that reacts mostly in confusion. She’s a pioneer just by being herself. As a white girl growing up in Iowa, I was acutely aware of the Asian stereotypes and racism because many of my friends were Asian, either immigrants themselves or first generation. They were all incredibly smart and driven and funny and fabulous in every way. Part of that was their nature and a large part of it was the pressures from society and their parents. They faced two options in society’s eyes: math and success or manicurist and an accent. There is often no in between. As children, these weren’t things we talked about outright or feelings we articulated, but they were a part of the fabric of our existence and friendship. We joked about ABC, the Asian parent grading scale, what being a “banana” meant, and a great many more things steeped in racial stereotypes. These were the beginnings of larger conversations I would have in college, in my future, and in my career. Reading Minor Feelings, I couldn’t help but think about each one of those friends and conversations.

The US is in the middle of an election, an election where immigration is in the spotlight. Though it is a front and center policy topic, there is an absence. Asians and Asian Americans are being neglected in conversation, which shouldn’t come as a surprise because they so often are. Hong addresses the dichotomy and oppression Asian Americans face in Minor Feelings, which is beautiful and heartbreaking. The collection of essays addresses the neglect, the oppression, the existence of Asian Americans. Hong is a brilliant writer, and I cannot recommend more.

Memorable Quotes
“When I hear the phrase “Asians are next in line to be white,” I replace the word “white” with “disappear.” Asians are next in line to disappear.”
“Patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it’s more than a chat about race. It’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Except it’s even trickier than that. Because the person has all of Western history, politics, literature, and mass culture on their side, proving that you don’t exist.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Author: Cathy Park Hong
Publisher: One World
Copyright: 2020
ISBN: 9781984820365

Books, Fiction, NonFiction

American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá

November 30, 2019November 30, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth A Read Absolutely
Length 320
Quick Review Zitkála-Šá uses her experience as Sioux woman to write nonfiction stories, short stories, and poems to fight for change and equality long before the fight received any recognition.

Contemplating American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá in Houston, Texas. | Sweater | Jeans | Boots | Socks |

20191125_164923-01 — American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá.

November is National Native American Heritage Month, and I never knew that until this year when I looked up to see if they had a month… Suffice to say, we could do better educating the people of this country about the indigenous people who lived here long before we barged in and stole their land. I don’t know very much about native culture or history, so I definitely need to do better. After reading Zitkála-Šá’s American Indian Stories, I need to make more of an effort to read and appreciate Native American literature and writing.

There’s a shitty irony in the fact American Indian Stories is written in English, the language of the colonizer. Zitkála-Šá writes about her life and tells stories inspired by her people, but in order to get published or reach a wide audience, she had to write in English. A language she was not raised speaking and struggled to learn in a harsh and cruel environment.

American Indian Stories paints a beautiful and heartbreaking picture of a land and a close knit community ingrained with caring for the needs of others, respect each other, and being a part of nature. It’s more than a book about being a native child and woman; it’s about her journey into activism. From being a young child chasing her own shadow on the plains to a child angrily hiding from a haircut or ruining turnips for dinner in the city, she pushed back and followed her own path.

The writing is beautiful. Even when the stories are being told from a child’s perspective, they are poignant, “I sank deep into the corner of my seat, for I resented being watched.” or “”… for now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder.” The contrast between home on the plains and living in a boarding house in the city is stark. In the modern world full of sound, lights, technology, and people, I didn’t think about the sensory attack it was for her to move into a bustling city. Her inability to move or feel the breeze from the plains would have been stifling in its own right. The language and style Zitkála-Šá utilizes throughout American Indian Stories changes to punctuate the emotions she or her characters were going through. Life on the plains was illustrated with long and flowing syntax to the point of being lackadaisical. Her experiences in the boarding house and among white people changed the style into short sentences with precise punctuation, which only reveals a small part of the tension, anxiety, anger, and sadness she must have been feeling at the time.

Zitkála-Šá depicts strong people and characters in her book. The most interesting and abundant characters are strong women. She was an incredibly strong woman herself. She was a writer, musician, activist, politician, and more, so it should be no surprise, her characters are independent women. In “A Warrior’s Daughter,” she shows a woman can be brutal warriors, saviors, and gentle all at the same time. They don’t have to choose between being strong and vulnerable or a warrior and a wife; women are capable of great things simultaneously.

20191125_163945-01 — Contemplating American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá in Houston, Texas. | Sweater | Jeans | Boots | Socks |

As a native Midwesterner from a neighboring state to Zitkála-Šá’s home state of South Dakota, her descriptions of nature resonate with my history. The land she ran across as a child is the same land I did. There are stark differences, of course. As a child standing on a hill looking at the rolling fields and feeling a sense of belonging and freedom, we were the same for a moment. These shared histories and emotional memories are what connect us as humans across differences and time. She was born 115 year before I was into a very different life and way of life, but her home is my home. Reading her childhood memories of South Dakota in American Indian Stories felt like reading my own childhood memories of Iowa.

Through so much of this book, I kept thinking What the fuck, white people??? As a linguist – and probably as an intersectional human being – I can’t fathom thinking corporal punishment will make children suddenly speak a foreign language. The whole boarding house situation was appalling. There was no understanding of children or their needs, let alone the needs of children from different backgrounds, cultures, and languages. It broke my heart. I knew what happened and went on, but it’s another thing to read someone’s experiences.

American Indian Stories is a beautiful book. It’s small. It has an incredible emotional depth full of meaning and insight into our past as Americans and what has been done. It is heartbreaking and relatable because her experiences are human. Zitkála-Šá calls out the wrongs she and her people faced a century ago, but those wrongs continue to be done.

Memorable Quotes
“The most gruesome conflict, make no mistake, was within the self, in the individual heart that was, at one time, culturally defined by connection to others.” Forward by Layli Long Soldier
“They treated my best judgement, poor as it was, with the utmost respect.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: American Indian Stories
Author: Zitkála-Šá
Publisher: Modern Library (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9781984854216

Books, NonFiction

Text Me When You Get Home by Kayleen Schaefer

October 22, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth A Read Yes
Length 281
Quick Review “Text me when you get home” is not just the title of Kayleen Schaefer’s book, it’s a phrase almost every woman has uttered for a lot of reasons, which Schaefer delves into in her look at modern womanhood and friendship.

Hanging out in a Houston Heights gazebo.

Text Me When You Get Home by Kayleen Schaefer | Sunflower Set | Shoes | Purse | Bow | Bracelets | Sunglasses | Earrings

Kayleen Schaefer had me at the title Text Me When You Get Home; The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship because it’s an evolution and triumph in my own life. As a woman who grew up with mostly guy friends, I have found myself solely surrounded by women in my adulthood. I grew up thinking I was a guy’s girl; it turns out I don’t miss being one of the guys at all. Schaefer describes the phenomenon women are experiencing: female friendship is awesome and nothing like the media has been portraying it. Reading Schaefer’s words feels like unraveling my complex emotions and opinions on more than just female friendships but also my own identity as a woman and writer living in a male dominated world.

Text Me When You Get Home seems to be an anthem for women around the world “because women who say, “Text me when you get home,” aren’t just asking for reassurance that you’ve made it to your bed unharmed. It’s not only about safety. It’s about solidarity. It’s about us knowing how unsettling it can feel when you’ve been surrounded by friends and then are suddenly by yourself again. It’s about us understanding that women who are alone get unwanted attention and scrutiny.” I think we’re really saying I’m with you even when I can’t be with you.

Schaefer explores the complexities of female friendships and why they tend to seem so damn hard. It turns out, it’s really not our fault at all. Feminine self-hatred is so ingrained because: the media. At every angle, women are taught by the media that we’re catty, mean, unstable, crazy, hormonal, indecisive, and less successful. This ideology is forced down our throats so much it enters our conversations and how we interact with other women, which only reinforces these ideologies. The fact is, none of this is remotely true. It ends up being a cultural self-fulfilling prophecy rather than biological inability to love and support the ladies in our lives.

Female friendships are more complicated and deeper than male friendships because women are willing to go deeper, do the work, and lean in to one another. Schaefer isn’t afraid to take on the hard topics in Text Me When You Get Home. Friendship is influenced by everything, and women have to overcome all of these difficult topics and societal failures in order to have a nurturing and wonderful relationship. From the data bias (explored in depth in Caroline Criado-Perez’s Invisible Women) to the biological “tend-and-befriend” response to New York City’s female only residences (Barbizon, the most famous, is featured in Fiona Davis’ The Dollhouse and was home to Silvia Plath) to marriage to feminism to careers.

The most poignant moments in Text Me When You Get Home are when Schaefer talks about her personal experiences as a woman in a man’s world. The truly touching points involve her own evolution as a woman and discovery of female friendship. Female friends feed the soul in a way a man in any capacity is not able to, “I wanted my friends to consider me as necessary as they had become to me. I wanted them to know that these were long-term relationships and that I’d be there for them, too, in any way they might want.”

In the past century, female friendship has been the in between; women are companions until a romantic partner is obtained. Historically this has never been true. The last century has seen women isolated and conditioned to depend on men in ways we never have as a gender in order to keep the status quo for as long as possible. This new generation of women is calling bullshit. We’re showing up for the good and the bad. We’re saying Text Me When You Get Home.

Memorable Quotes
“Men do not tell their friends to text them when they get home.”
“My friends took me out of the way I was taught to be and turned me into something better.”
“I thought making friends with women would interfere with my career in more ways than just distracting me from work. I thought if I wanted to be a writer, I had to look to men. That’s because real writers were men. No one told me this. They didn’t have to.”
“Marriage was something to look forward to, I was taught. Without a husband, you were supposed to feel incomplete.”
“For the first time in my life, I treated pursuing and tending to friendships seriously.”
“Women aren’t allowed to be jealous, angry, or vengeful, at least if we want to go on being seen as good girls.”
“It’s the incongruity between stopping ourselves from seeming anything but pleasant while ambitious, on one hand, and the belief that all women can’t have good things, on the other, that creates frenemies.”
“We can be protectors.”

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Title: Text Me When You Get Home; The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship
Author: Kayleen Schaefer
Publisher: Dutton (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9781101986141

Tag: Oppression

Racial Consciousness in Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong

American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá

Text Me When You Get Home by Kayleen Schaefer