The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang
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Web ID: 13391776a good read!
An in depth personalized memoir/observations of race and class in America as witnessed by this Korean American popular journalist and several generations of his Korean family. He includes a potted history of anti-Asian legislation primarily in western US but rampant elsewhere as well and a reminder that Nationalism cuts both ways. Also prominent is a reminder that colored is also yellow (Asian), brown (Latinx), and red (North American Indigenous). Well done! I requested and received a free ebook copy from Crown Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Fascinating Blend of Memoir and History
The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang is a fascinating blend of memoir and history documenting his experience and the history of many Asian Americans. As someone whose grandparents emigrated to the United States, I feel pretty separated from what they must have experienced, so I found it fascinating to consider what brings so many to the United States from other countries. Though lumped together, Asian Americans have come to the United States from very different home countries with a huge variety of experiences and traumas. Kang synthesizes a huge amount of information regarding politics and policies in the US and Asian countries. The “American Dream” has been so appealing to so many, while government action/interference from the US has directly lead to so many needing to leave their home countries in order to survive. The vast amount of dense information can be daunting at times, so I found myself re-reading certain parts to better grasp the myriad history lessons since Americans aren’t taught very much about Asian countries in school. Kang well illustrates the breadth of immigrant experiences and feeling of invisibility, loneliness, or not fitting in. With policy changes and who was accepted into the United States from other countries, it’s interesting to consider how Asian Americans tend to be put into two categories, either that of the successful students and professional that demonstrate “model minority” status, or the invisible working class and poor. Asian Americans are seen as sort of white, but not really white. Kang synthesizes US history including class, racism, misogyny, the civil rights movements, shifting immigration policies, and foreign policy and interference in Asian countries. The book could be a little meandering at times and I got a sense of uneasiness or existential dread from the author’s perspective. Though it could be a little hard to pin down as his perspective sometimes seemed a little vague or hard to describe. I definitely appreciated his viewpoint and considering perspectives and experiences very different from my own. Overall, fascinating and illuminating nonfiction. Thank you Crown Publishing and NetGalley for providing this ARC.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Koreans in America
This is the chronicle of one man’s journey as an Asian American to find who is he in that collective cultural identify which includes all peoples Mongoloid. He observes that “there’s not even a shared experience of treatment in America to point to. The classification has been strained by its exclusions.” I’ve questioned the validity of the term Asian America since Asian groups have been targeted in different ways and different places, but perhaps the attacks on Asians after Trump’s mislabel of Covid-19 as the “China flu” will serve as a unifier. Kang questions who he is as a Korean in America and what that means for his future. He acknowledges that there is a bamboo ceiling is between him and career positions as corporate CEOs. His recourse is to study hard to enter into the white collar realm. We learn of the schools that spring up to coach Korean children in the sciences. One of the education coaches justifies his school, “If he didn’t go to MIT, what opportunities would he have? How else could he show his value in America?” At times his frustration boils over into anger at his limitations. He is nakedly honest in his journey to grow up and find his place as an Asian in America. As a white Anglo-Saxon female I’ve taken my opportunities for granted. Not so for many Americans who click a different census box than mine. He is so much more self-aware than I ever was and concludes “like most young, confused, but ultimately dissatisfied people, I put way too much stock in the idea of authenticity.” This book was a learning experience for me.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
thought provoking read
The Loneliest Americans By Jay Caspian Kang The Loneliest Americans is a thought provoking essays about Kang's family as they moved from Korea during the time in the mid 60's when the restrictions (Hart-Cellar Act) against Asian immigrants were lifted in the United States. What follows is Kang's perspective of the "Asian American" collective identity, and through a non-traditional memoir that I really enjoyed reading about. His arguments are taut, well-researched and well presented albeit brought more questions to the table. The epilogue was sincerely heartfelt as he ponders the life of his newborn daughter, born mixed race and her place as an Asian American looking more like him than her Jewish mother. This is a book that I will re-read time and time again.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Very educational book!
Author Jay Caspian Kang sums up this very informative book with this line; "This book is about that desperate need to find oneself within the narrative of a country that would rather write you out of it." Even though Asian Americans, a much broader term than I ever realized before reading this book, face discrimination like all other minority groups living in the United States, their experiences are often ignored or labeled as trivial compared to other more obvious forms of racism, such as police shootings of unarmed black people or the detention of Latino children in cages. Though Asian Americans may experience racism in different ways than other peoples of color, they still experience the effects of white supremacy and are not viewed, and do not view themselves, as white. "There are still only two races in America; Black and white. Everyone else is part of a demographic group headed in one direction or the other." It is downright impossible to find an identity in a country that insists upon such a racial binary. As a liberal middle-class white woman, I learned a lot from this book. Taking an honest look at myself, I realized that I am one of those liberals whose good intentions do not always extend to Asian Americans as they do other peoples of color. Just because all of the Asian Americans in my social circle are succeeding well financially, this does not mean that they do not experience racism. Going forward, I am going to do a better job at recognizing the very real issues Asian Americans face in this country, as well as how past policies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese detention camps, and the wars in Vietnam and Korea still influence the present.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com