![]() ![]() ![]() A misconception that Asians are weak or passive further emboldens racist attacks against them.īut the community is fighting back against white supremacist delusions with initiatives like Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition formed during the pandemic to address, track, and provide resources regarding the escalation of anti-Asian violence and discrimination. Many major US cities, like New York and San Francisco, reported anti-Asian hate crimes rose nearly 150 percent in 2020. Since the pandemic began, nearly 3,800 hate-related incidents against Asian Americans have been reported, including verbal harassment and physical attacks targeting East Asians. “Our feelings are overreactions because our lived experiences of structural inequity are not commensurate with their deluded reality.” “Minor feelings arise, for instance, upon hearing a slight, knowing it’s racial, and being told, Oh, that’s all in your head,” Hong writes. Hong defines “minor feelings” as the range of emotions built from the everyday experience of constantly having one’s perception of reality questioned or dismissed. How far can I push without making them so uncomfortable they won’t laugh? How can I roast white people without fully activating their white guilt? How can I speak my truth while exposing theirs and all the while make it funny? When I do stand-up, I’m always conscious of what’s going to make white people clench up. By dumbing things down or framing my cultural identity and experiences in a way that white people can appreciate, I worried that I was selling out my culture for the gains of white approval or entertainment. When I was starting out in comedy, it was impossible not to see how the scene was dominated by white people, especially straight, white, cis men. Even to declare that I’m writing for myself would still mean I’m writing to a part of me that wants to please white people,” Hong says. She was “raised and educated to please white people and this desire to please has become ingrained into my consciousness. Hong reflects on how her writing was always created to the standard set forth by white teachers and critics. Growing tired of the "triumphant overcoming struggle" narrative, I’m done letting people off the hook for their ignorance and avoidance of this country’s harmful legacy of bigotry and xenophobia against Asians. ![]() Wanting people to learn about my Indian culture, I sometimes found myself cherry-picking stories of elephant rides in India and delicious home-cooked curry, rather than those surrounding racial bullying and identity politics that made my experience as an Indian American ripe with pain. Minor Feelings details how the publishing industry tends to sell only one kind of immigrant story, focused on struggle and triumph, packaging the immigrant experience into a single note that is easily digestible for a white audience. I remember a heated discussion with a white, liberal friend where she was attempting to take ownership of her white privilege and said, “You don’t know white people like I do.” I wanted to scream, “No, YOU don’t know white people like I do.” Interactions with white people dismissing or diminishing my lived experience as a brown child of Indian immigrants is exhausting, particularly when I’m asked to do the emotional labor of enlightening them on the subject of race and the immigrant experience. Because the person has all of Western history, politics, literature, and mass culture on their side, proving that you don’t exist,” Hong writes. “It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Hong details how draining it can be to patiently educate a clueless white person about race. ![]() Minor Feelings delivers a necessary, radical, and groundbreaking education for Asian Americans and non-Asians alike. Throughout my own life I have felt varying levels of overt, closeted, or thinly veiled racism and xenophobia, with these experiences forming my view of the world and my place in it. Hong struggled for most of her life to prove her existence: “My confidence was impoverished from a lifelong diet of conditional love and a society who thinks I'm as interchangeable as lint.”Īs an Indian American, I can relate. Asian American visibility, representation, and justice have always seemed to be an afterthought in this country. ![]()
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