Do you ever have moments where you read something in a book, and it brings something so obvious to your attention that you sort of feel dumb afterwards for never having noticed it before? Well, that happened with me while reading The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang. He talked about identity politics in the U.S. as a racial binary. I had never encountered this phrase before, but it was so perfect, I had to put the book down to ponder it. It perfectly describes something I had noticed but never put into words. This might be understandable as I’m a straight, white, cis-male from the Midwest. I’m not exactly on the cutting edge of racial political scholarship or activism, but I do try to educate myself so as to only be woefully behind rather than dreadfully out of date. And I do have to admit that when it comes to identity politics, I have done no work when it comes to Asian identity. That is part of the reason that I picked up the The Loneliest Americans; I need to do work in that area. Luckily, Jay Caspian Kang wrote an engaging, detailed book that complicates what little I do know and raises frustrating and fascinating questions. I found myself highlighting much of the book and searching out stories that Kang discusses. The Loneliest Americans is a lovely balance of memoir and critique. I can’t tell you whether Kang is pro- or anti-identity politics after finishing the book. In fact, I think it’s the wrong question to ask. I think, Kang asks an inherently human question. Where do I fit into society? But for Kang and many like him, that question is complicated by a society where racism is structural and rampant while at the same time affecting him in different ways than what we traditionally think of as racist. There’s so much I want to say about this book, but it’d be better if you just read it.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
© PrimmLife.com 2021
TL;DR
Jay Caspian Kang’s The Loneliest Americans is a lovely, complicated, nuanced contemplation of the place of Asian immigrants and their descendants in the U.S. This book had me reflecting a lot on current current trends in politics. Highly, highly recommended.
From the Publisher
A riveting blend of family history and original reportage that explores—and reimagines—Asian American identity in a Black and white world
“A smart, vulnerable, and incisive exploration of what it means for this brilliant and honest writer—a child of Korean immigrants—to assimilate and aspire while being critical of his membership in his community of origin, in his political tribe, and in America.”—Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko
In 1965, a new immigration law lifted a century of restrictions against Asian immigrants to the United States. Nobody, including the lawmakers who passed the bill, expected it to transform the country’s demographics. But over the next four decades, millions arrived, including Jay Caspian Kang’s parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They came with almost no understanding of their new home, much less the history of “Asian America” that was supposed to define them.
The Loneliest Americans is the unforgettable story of Kang and his family as they move from a housing project in Cambridge to an idyllic college town in the South and eventually to the West Coast. Their story unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding Asian America, as millions more immigrants, many of them working-class or undocumented, stream into the country. At the same time, upwardly mobile urban professionals have struggled to reconcile their parents’ assimilationist goals with membership in a multicultural elite—all while trying to carve out a new kind of belonging for their own children, who are neither white nor truly “people of color.”
Kang recognizes this existential loneliness in himself and in other Asian Americans who try to locate themselves in the country’s racial binary. There are the businessmen turning Flushing into a center of immigrant wealth; the casualties of the Los Angeles riots; the impoverished parents in New York City who believe that admission to the city’s exam schools is the only way out; the men’s right’s activists on Reddit ranting about intermarriage; and the handful of protesters who show up at Black Lives Matter rallies holding “Yellow Peril Supports Black Power” signs. Kang’s exquisitely crafted book brings these lonely parallel climbers together amid a wave of anti-Asian violence. In response, he calls for a new form of immigrant solidarity—one rooted not in bubble tea and elite college admissions but in the struggles of refugees and the working class.
Review: The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang
The Loneliest Americans meditates upon the position of Asian Americans in the U.S. racial binary. Are they people of color? Are they white? Kang ponders these questions throughout the book in nuanced and deep ways. He uses the story of his family’s journey from the Korean War to today as way to interrogate these questions. But this isn’t just a memoir. The Loneliest American critiques U.S. culture, and no culture avoids the lens here. Kang concerns himself with the place of Asians in the U.S. What is Asian American culture? Is there even such a thing?
The Loneliest Americans is a short, quick read, but this doesn’t mean it lacks depth. There is a lot of information packed into this slim volume. Kang focuses on the Hart-Celler Act, or the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This abolished the National Origins Formula, which discriminated against certain immigrants based on, you guessed it, national origin. As you may have guessed from its inclusion in this book, the Hart-Celler Act had a large effect on immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere. Kang’s family came from Korea, and his father’s story is that of the American dream. He works his way up owning his own company and then being a CEO for a Korean company. But, of course, the story is more complicated than that. We learn that his father gave it up to become a farmer in the Pacific Northwest. Kang using his family’s story to detail the effects of Hart-Celler was really well done. Too often, today, immigration is short hand for Mexicans or Latinos at the southern border, and again this is a way of erasing other populations. The Hart-Celler act removed discriminatory practices that some today would like to put back in place.
In addition to his own story, Kang looks at what it means to be Asian American in the U.S. It’s complicated. Unfortunately the current racial politics of the U.S. is best described as a binary, whites versus people of color (PoC). Except that PoC often simply means black. The black experience in the U.S. is most prominent amongst PoC, but racism targets them all equally. And what’s more, Asian is incredibly reductive as it makes such a large part of the world filled with numerous cultures and languages into a singular identity. Kang interrogates the place of Asian America in that binary, and there are no easy answers. I’m not sure there are answers at all. Kang, however, takes the reader through those thorny questions with as much objectivity as possible. Even when he’s discussing Asian Men’s Rights Groups on Reddit, he’s clear about his feelings toward these ideologies while presenting the people involved as three dimensional beings, not caricatures. To me, this made the people involved even sadder than before because they are men trying to find their way in this world being led astray in the name of politics and heritage. This section was super uncomfortable for me, which means I liked it the most. There’s good writing, good details about the men and their ideology. Kang also describes how an acquaintance of his went down that particular path. It’s excellent journalism and a captivating read.
U.S. Racial Binary
The Loneliest Americans opened up my personal view of identity politics in the U.S. Of course, racism against Asians is something that is pervasive in the U.S. Anyone paying attention to how the American political right has used that racism to distract from their abdication of leadership during the pandemic knows this. At the same time, though, the U.S. has always had racist views of the Asian community. From internment camps to fears of Japanese business takeovers in the 90s to fears of China calling American debt due, the U.S. only seems to pay attention to Asians as a source of fear. Or in the case of Asian women with a fetishization. Despite the fact that Asians have fit into nearly all communities across the U.S., despite the rise in popularity of K-Pop and Korean dramas, despite the proliferation (and watering down) of Asian cultures through martial arts and food, the U.S. – right, left, and center – still do not know what to do with Asians. Part of this reason is because Americans are lazy, and we like to group things together. So, we group people from the Eastern Hemisphere who look similar under one banner. This removes an incredible amount of diversity. We are asking people from Korea to Japan to China to Thailand to the Philippines to Fiji to Malaysia to identify with each other simply because it fits our categories. Immigrants from these countries don’t share languages or cultures; they might not even be of the same class. Someone from Japan might come here with enough money to or maybe even get a loan to start a small business. While a different immigrant from Vietnam might come here to get a job in a screen printing shop. Yet, we expect these two people to fit equally into our nice little category.
In addition, Kang really opened my eyes to the racial binary under which our country operates. For the people between the poles of white or black, they are compared to either side while being their own identity. For example, Latinos in Texas are lumped in with Latinos in southern Florida despite having their own identities. What effect does this have on people? Kang gives numerous examples, and they are heartbreaking.
Class versus Identity?
If you’ve read other of my reviews, you might see that I believe Leftists focus entirely too much on class. The Loneliest Americans has shown me that maybe I’ve discounted it a bit too much. Kang discusses the efforts of upwardly mobile Asian Americans. Again, does a second generation graduate of Harvard really have the same identity as an immigrant in a factory? But no one can discount that both might be targeted because of their race. And while Asian Americans are often seen as professional and industrious, how often do they break through to the upper echelons of businesses or even government? Does their race limit their upward mobility? Question like these complicate discussion of identity and racial politics. They are real and important questions deserving of consideration but often get hidden by the more horrific and visceral problems of racial politics. But just because one person is middle-class or even wealthy, the racism against them is no less wrong. Is it just as wrong, though, to expect someone who is middle class to have the same problems of someone who is poor simply because of their Asian heritage? Is it okay to ignore the structural racism targeted at the middle class and upwardly mobile in order to better the poorer Asians? These are questions that complicate any analysis of political identity.
Just Identity
One of the other things that Kang does so well is he made me wonder if maybe there are just basic questions of identity that get swept up into questions of racial identity. At some point, we all have identity questions, right? Am I an engineer, a writer, what makes me, me? These are questions we all ask ourselves. One of the privileges I have is that I don’t have to consider how my race will affect the formation of that identity. But when does the focus on race cloud other questions? Kang uses an example of a friend trying and failing to get a show about his experiences made in Hollywood. Now, we know Hollywood has a representation problem. People of color are starting to make headway in the industry, but the majority of lead roles still go to white actors. Again, it’s getting better, but there’s also a long way to go. With that said, how do we know if the show was rejected because it was considered “too Asian” or was it simply not good? Obviously we can’t know this, but Kang’s friend leans towards the “too Asian” reason. Knowing that Fresh Off the Boat was toned down for U.S. audiences, it’s not a stretch to believe a show could get passed on because of the issues of race and culture raised in it. But it’s also not a stretch to believe that the show wasn’t good enough for TV. The fact that PoC have to reflect on this possibility adds a layer of effort on their creative work, which is hard enough on its own. How do PoC navigate those questions? It has to be exhausting.
Conclusion
Jay Caspian Kang’s The Loneliest Americans is an excellent rumination on the current state of racial politics with regard to Asian Americans. If you read this book, I recommend having a highlighter or pen in hand. I marked passages up and down my copy of the eBook. There’s good writing that provokes deeper reflection. Kang’s work doesn’t present us with easy answers, and The Loneliest Americans presents thorny issues for all parties engaged in identity politics to consider. The Loneliest Americans is worth the read to get a new perspective on what it means to be an American.