Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, by Cathy Park-Hong

Minor Feelings: An AsianAmerican Reckoning is a collection of essays detailing Cathy Park Hong's life, and what she calls 'minor feelings': sustainable, uncomfortable, and at their core, racialized feelings. Recollecting her family history and experience growing up in America, Hong looks back on her relationship with English as a language, depression, poetry, and friendship all to recount what it is like to be an Asian American growing up in the United States. It also emphasizes racial consciousness, cultural criticism, and the importance of remembering

As an Asian American myself, Minor Feelings felt like a collection of essays written by my own consciousness: for other readers, these ideas may seem radical or eye-opening, but Hong's memoir reminds me that this is a reality and realization I've had to come to since I was young. It's comforting in a way to see that there are others out there who feel the exact same as I do, and could put a name to the feelings I felt towards microaggressions and casual racism: minor feelings.

Reading Hong's story felt like reading mine in a sense, and I am grateful that as an Asian-American (more specifically a Korean-American), I was able to have similar insight as Hong did. I think for those that wish to explore the Asian-American experience, Hong's book is a great place to start. It is a book that humanizes a community that for so long had been dehumanized, sexualized, and treated as a monolith. It is a revolutionary book that for many minorities are lived concepts that are normalized, and understanding these truths brings us one step closer to understanding all minority community's experiences in an empathetic way.

Reviewed by M.L., Grade 12

Montrose Library