Writer Cathy Park Hong visited UMBC Thursday evening to discuss her Pulitzer-nominated creative nonfiction book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. Her interviewer, UMBC Media & Communication Studies professor Fan Yang, asked Hong to speak about significant moments from the book, such as the words "minor" and "reckoning" in the book's title, which enabled Hong to elucidate the multiple meanings each word encompasses and how they relate to the work she sought to do in the book. Hong also discussed the importance of inter- and intra-racial understanding and introspection to process the complex and layered implications (such as tokenism) of living with Asian American identities in a racist society.
Yang's approach to questioning, as above; the positioning of the speakers, who were seated in chairs on the low stage; and the substantial time allotted to audience questions facilitated an intriguing taste of the book for those who hadn't yet read it, some added meaning for those who had, and a wonderful sense of conversation between Hong and audience members.
I appreciated learning more about the perspectives of people different from myself, especially as I am myself raising a Korean American child and, because I have the benefit of positionality as an intimate outsider to DJ's adoption, I can take up -- and have taken up -- the otherwise neglected responsibility not only of his socialization as an internationally and effectively interracially adopted Korean American person but also of frank critique of all those processes as needed. Some of Hong's comments affirmed some of what I have recently said to DJ myself, although he wasn't as engaged in the recording as I might have wished. He is a 10-year-old, after all. At least he got to see a prominent Korean American featured at a public university event.
You can watch the recording here:
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