During my recent conversation with Cathy Park Hong about her book, "Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning," she said something I continue to digest. In her book — the latest selection in the Mary Ann Key Book Club and the subject of our Tuesday panel — she reflects on the day she was leaving a mall and a white man, who was walking through the doors with his wife, yelled that he would not hold the door for Hong and her sister because "I don't open doors for [racial slurs]."
She told her father about the interaction. He was upset. But he also asked her if she'd played any role in the incident.
"I could tell that he was very angry but that anger was both suppressed and misdirected," Hong recalled. "He turned to me and said, 'Why didn't you let them go first?' … I said, 'Dad, they're the ones that called us a [racial slur]. How could you say that?' He said, 'You have to always, always be respectful and let them go first because you can't trust them. You don't know what they're going to say.' He didn't say white people or Americans. He just said 'they.' "
I could relate to that sentiment. My navigation of "Minor Feelings" has been filled with reflections on the parallels between the Asian American and the Black communities. I understand the experience of working within and around whiteness. I know what it's like to have parents who know firsthand the physical and psychological threats incited by racism and fear for our safety — a fear and sense of helplessness that sometimes morphed into questions about behaviors they worried might attract an offense that could harm us.
My exploration of this book, however, has also helped me understand the distinct, layered and unique components within the non-monolithic journey of the AAPI community. When I started the Mary Ann Key Book Club, named after my great-great-great grandmother who was enslaved in the 1840s and 1850s, I wanted to make room for other communities to tell their stories. Hong's vivid, anecdotal and poetic recollection of her own experience, however, is also a demand for a community that is often perceived as "not white enough nor Black enough" to be humanized and visible.
On Tuesday at 7 p.m., a panel of community leaders from the Twin Cities, through our partnership with Hennepin County Library, will discuss the book in a virtual gathering. Moderator Lindsay Peifer, a former St. Paul Public Schools teacher and now senior policy analyst and specialist with the National Education Association, working in AAPI outreach and engagement, will join David Mura, a poet and the author of "Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei" and "Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity"; Terri Thao, a social justice advocate and program director at Nexus Community Partners; and Anthea Yur, a community organizer and the founder of the Kokoro Project, which aims to bridge "allyship with other non-Asian communities."
You can watch the conversation by registering through the Hennepin County Library website for the Mary Ann Key Book Club. I'm also grateful to Friends of the Hennepin County Library and the Star Tribune for their support and partnership. And we've partnered with the National Education Association for this panel, too.
In a conversation with Peifer nearly six months ago, I told her about my goal to make our next book a catalyst for conversation about the AAPI community and tangible action. She recommended "Minor Feelings" as a book that aims to make AAPI history inextricable from American history, a relationship it has historically been denied.
