Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong is a monumental and vital novel that reflects the identity of an Asian American. Her collection of essays centers around minor feelings and the helpless reckoning that the identity of being American contradicts the reality of being a minority. Yet, Hong's essay collection is nothing less than minor and only "feelings": it is fiery and angry and refreshing.
When I read the first few chapters of the book, I was surprised. I cannot really place a finger on why I was, but mostly it was the deep honesty of her words. I had expected the book to be more subtle, in a way that only toed the line and did not really offend anyone. But reading Minor Feelings felt refreshing and that spoke to me on a personal level. There was a faucet that I was angry about too, and Cathy Hong's words were able to speak for me. In the essay"An Education," Cathy and her two Asian friends in college flounder their artistic passions and creativity as they inspire each other and build a reckoning force that are far separated from reality against them. Additionally, in the chapter "Portrait of an Artist," Cathy writes about the story of Theresa Han Kyung Cha, a Korean-American writer who was violently raped and murdered. When Cathy Park Hong mentions that "I don't want to care that no one else cares because I don't want to be left stranded in my rage," that one sentence encapsulated what I had felt about race with a startling clarity. Hong's reasoning spoke for why I, in many cases, wanted to avoid talking and thinking about race.
Overall, the clarity and the honesty of Cathy Park Hong's words resonated to me on a deeper level than I had expected. Maybe it was her profession in poetry, but Hong critically explored so many aspects of what it meant to be Asian American, even through unsuspecting modes of stand-up comedy and college friendship. It is true that Cathy Park Hong's book speaks mostly for East Asian Americans, especially Koreans, which is not representative for all Asian Americans experience. Still, Hong's perspective is important, especially for people like me, to be spoken and heard for.
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