“The indignity of being Asian in this country has been underreported,” the poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong writes in Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning.
Morgan Ome: So how do we move forward?
Cathy Park Hong: I don’t want to overcomplicate this. There are two ways of talking about this. The act of violence itself is wrong. You cannot excuse it. I think many Asian Americans have never talked about it, and so white people still don’t believe that Asian Americans face racism. Because we’re invisible, the racism against us has also been invisible. This is why it’s important that people are speaking up to show: “Actually, this has been happening, and there’s been a spike. But at the same time, this has been going on for a long time. We just haven’t really talked about it. And now we’re talking about it, and you have to pay attention.”
Morgan Ome: Maybe I can clarify. The term Asian American was coined in 1968 by radical student organizers who were envisioning a pan-Asian, anti-racist, anti-imperialist movement. Is their notion of being Asian American just an ideal? Or is it a real identity-based coalition that you see forming?
Cathy Park Hong: People forget that history. I forget that too. Asian Americans came together because there was no term for us. Before, we were called Oriental, or by our nationalities. What created the name Asian American was the Vietnam War and the Black Power movement. Keep in mind, those Asian American organizers were second generation, maybe even third generation. They were Filipino, Chinese, Japanese. Quite a few of them had family put in internment camps. They were working-class. So they had a lot to be angry about.
It was really powerful, and it got written out of history. Part of it was because of the immigration patterns in America. After the late 1960s, there was this huge influx of Asians coming in from all different nations. We got way more diverse: Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees, Koreans. A lot of those immigrants now have children who consider themselves American, but realize that they still have secondary status as Americans because of the color of their skin and because their voices don’t have the kind of reach that white people do.
Part of the new awareness and consciousness is because there are a lot more of us. And there are more of us who have been here long enough to demand that we need to be part of this country. More so than when I was in my 20s or even 30s, the younger generation is so much fiercer, so much more involved, and so much prouder of being Asian American. The rhetoric has changed from We want more Asians in Hollywood. It’s not just about representational politics. It’s also about confronting class inequity among Asian Americans and trying to build solidarity with other people of color.
Morgan Ome: Is there anything else you want to add?
Cathy Park Hong: As cynical as I sometimes sound, the fact that anti-Asian violent incidents are being documented, and that people are talking about them, is progress. Because that wasn’t happening before, not when I was growing up. A lot of Asian Americans are more vocal, organized, radicalized, and progressive. And we’re not going to go back.
Read the full interview at The Atlantic














