Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong Review

Title: Minor Feelings

Author: Cathy Park Hong

Genre: Nonfiction

Blurb: Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose the truth of racialized consciousness in America. Binding these essays together is Hong's theory of "minor feelings." As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity.

Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and artmaking, and to family and female friendship in a search to both uncover and speak the truth.

Me: The greatest reading surprise of this summer has been just the incredible Asian American literature I have read. These books are, quite literally, the books I've been waiting for my entire life. Throughout my reading experience, there have been many books that have put into words feelings that I couldn't fully understand before. But none of them have made me feel as real and as seen as this one. 

I want to first speak of my own personal experience. There's an age-old question of whether relatability and similarity should be taken into consideration in evaluating a book's worth. I don't know the exact answer, but after reading this, I now know what it means to feel so close to a text and an author's experience that it would be inextricable from my own. 

I, like Cathy Park Hong, was born in South Korea and immigrated here at a young age. Though I am part of a slightly different Korean generation (both my parents are well-educated and came for opportunity, not necessity), the experiences of growing up in a largely white and Asian environment, feeling strangely foreign in English and in America, and of growing disillusioned with what American meant were so similar it startled me. I am also a cis, straight Korean-American woman and writer. I have also felt constantly complicated feelings about my identity, my right to speak up, and my place in a society that has unimaginably harmed me yet has given me a place to be. 

Cathy Park Hong unpacks these feelings so beautifully. She discusses how the idea of "innocence" is distinctly white, and how children of color do not hold naive nostalgia about their past. I distinctly remember always wanting to grow up, wanting to be free. She looks at why Asian communities feel they cannot be politically active-- how they've been pacified by white myths. She shows that there is validity to an Asian American take on race, on reimagining a world that includes everyone. She illuminates the lack of love or idolization given to female artists of color. 

My favorite essay though was by far her last one: The Indebted. In it, Hong looks at what I see as a specifically Asian American emotion: the expectation of gratitude and the guilt of not feeling it. America saved us, is the Korean history narrative. We sacrificed everything for you, is the Asian parent narrative. All the ways we define ourselves are conditional- if you can ever repay us, you will be loved. You will be embraced. It's such a precarious way to live, a feeling that has made me feel trapped again and again. Hong unpacks the myth: what happens when America created a war that necessitated exodus? What happens when Asian identity is valued only when it serves the current system at hand? 

Even for anyone who isn't Asian American, who isn't a woman, and who doesn't necessarily understand Hong's perspective, the honesty and intelligence of the writing will still come through. It is so refreshing to see essays where the essayist flounders and admits her flaws, admits her self-doubt. It is incredible to see entire complex insecurities condensed into unforgettable lines. If the central pain of the Asian American experience has constantly been feeling like a foreign object, like a community with invalid and hidden suffering, introducing texts like this to everyone is how we will begin to unpack that familiar feeling of shame. 

For me though, this book (and some others from the summer) introduced a new chapter of my life. One with a tradition that I want to follow, the voices of Asian American writers, specifically women, who are unapologetic and unafraid to call out the confusing realities we've wanted to ignore. It made me not only think about the world but to deeply and seriously interrogate myself, a privilege I am genuinely so indebted and grateful for. 

Rating: Haven't used this one in a while! Beat my scale.