Cathy Park Hong in Minor Feelings is able to capture the ‘minor feelings’ Asian Americans have towards voicing the struggles Asians and Asian Americans face. When we compare our struggles to those of other minority groups (say, for example, the police brutality faced by Black Americans), Asian Americans often feel that our struggles are not ‘major’ enough and stay silent in the face of continued and often institutionalized oppression. In Minor Feelings, Hong validates these feelings while making the case for a unified and unapologetic call for action.
Favorite Quote: “In the popular imagination, Asian Americans inhabit a vague purgatorial status: not white enough nor black enough; distrusted by African Americans, ignored by whites, unless we’re being used by whites to keep the black man down.”
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