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Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

Cathy Park Hong

4.33 · Rating details · 9,912 ratings · 1,424 reviews

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose the truth of racialized consciousness in America. Binding these essays together is Hong's theory of "minor feelings." As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occu ...more

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Hardcover, 209 pages

Published February 25th 2020 by One World

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Nov 28, 2020 Cindy rated it liked it

3.5 stars. I really enjoyed the beginning of the book when Hong talks broadly about how the Asian-American experience fits in the minority conversation, the way being an invisible minority makes you question the validity of your issues, and the intersectionality of black people’s experience with racism. She also makes great points about how Asian artists (like many other POC) have to craft stories that are large and racially traumatic enough of a spectacle for others to consume, as well as the e 3.5 stars. I really enjoyed the beginning of the book when Hong talks broadly about how the Asian-American experience fits in the minority conversation, the way being an invisible minority makes you question the validity of your issues, and the intersectionality of black people’s experience with racism. She also makes great points about how Asian artists (like many other POC) have to craft stories that are large and racially traumatic enough of a spectacle for others to consume, as well as the expectation that our identity now must be required as part of the work (it’s not just “a story”, it’s “an Asian story” now). Her concept of “minor feelings” resonated with me a lot as someone who frequently gaslights themselves into how much of my experiences are truly discrimination or not that severe as others. This book provides a strong starting point in how we might understand the Asian American identity, but isn’t as expansive as I would like, especially since her essays in the 2nd half of the book deviate to other topics from her personal life and intimate details about her friend, which feel out of place and did not seem to have the same level of reflection to apply broadly to what the title aims for.

Still, there are some great pieces here, and here are some quotes that resonated with me. They do a great job at articulating the frustrations that I feel in having my issues as an Asian-American not be understood by other white Americans and even other people of color because of our invisible minority status and the way our oppression is more insidious and subtle.

“When I hear the phrase “Asians are next in line to be white,” I replace the word “white” with “disappear.” Asians are next in line to disappear. We are reputed to be so accomplished, and so law-abiding, we will disappear into this country’s amnesiac fog. We will not be the power but become absorbed by power, not share the power of whites but be stooges to a white ideology that exploited our ancestors. This country insists that our racial identity is beside the point, that it has nothing to do with being bullied, or passed over for promotion, or cut off every time we talk. Our race has nothing to do with this country, even, which is why we’re often listed as “Other” in polls and why we’re hard to find in racial breakdowns on reported rape or workplace discrimination or domestic abuse.”

“We keep our heads down and work hard, believing that our diligence will reward us with our dignity, but our diligence will only make us disappear. By not speaking up, we perpetuate the myth that our shame is caused by our repressive culture and the country we fled, whereas America has given us nothing but opportunity. The lie that Asians have it good is so insidious that even now as I write, I’m shadowed by doubt that I didn’t have it bad compared to others. But racial trauma is not a competitive sport. The problem is not that my childhood was exceptionally traumatic but that it was in fact rather typical. Most white Americans can only understand racial trauma as a spectacle.”

“Minor feelings occur when American optimism is enforced upon you, which contradicts your own racialized reality, thereby creating a static of cognitive dissonance. You are told, "Things are so much better," while you think, Things are the same. You are told, "Asian Americans are so successful," while you feel like a failure. This optimism sets up false expectations that increase these feelings of dysphoria.”

“Minor feelings are also the emotions we are accused of having when we decide to be difficult—in other words, when we decide to be honest. When minor feelings are finally externalized, they are interpreted as hostile, ungrateful, jealous, depressing, and belligerent, affects ascribed to racialized behavior that whites consider out of line. Our feelings are overreactions because our lived experiences of structural inequity are not commensurate with their deluded reality.”

“Asians lack presence. Asians take up apologetic space. We don’t even have enough presence to be considered real minorities. We’re not racial enough to be token. We’re so post-racial we’re silicon. “

“Our feelings are overreactions because our lived experiences of structural inequity are not commensurate with their deluded reality.”

“What if my cannibalizing ego is not a racial phenomenon but my own damn problem?”

“The curse of anyone nonwhite is that you are so busy arguing what you're not that you never arrive at what you are.”

“I'd rather be indebted than be the kind of white man who thinks the world owes him, because to live an ethical life is to be held accountable to history.” ...more

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Mar 14, 2020 Thomas rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, 2nd-favorites, biography-or-memoir, own-electronic, five-stars, read-on-nook

This book blew me the heck away, definitely one of the top five essay collections I have ever read. In Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, Cathy Park Hong delves into Asian American identity through the lens of history, psychology, and her own lived experience as a Korean American daughter of immigrants. This collection feels so necessary because Asian Americans receive such one-dimensional characterization in the United States: we’re math whizzes, we have wild tiger parents, we’re craz This book blew me the heck away, definitely one of the top five essay collections I have ever read. In Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, Cathy Park Hong delves into Asian American identity through the lens of history, psychology, and her own lived experience as a Korean American daughter of immigrants. This collection feels so necessary because Asian Americans receive such one-dimensional characterization in the United States: we’re math whizzes, we have wild tiger parents, we’re crazy rich, or now, we’re the ones who started Coronavirus. Hong eviscerates these reductionist stereotypes and explores Asian American complexity by sharing our history rife with colonization, the intergenerational trauma faced by our parents and passed down to us, and the ways in which we either resist whiteness or get subsumed by it. The most powerful part of this collection revolves around Hong’s capacity to connect the historical to the personal, such as this reflection on United Airline’s brutal treatment of David Dao Duy Anh, a Vietnamese American passenger:

“In 1975, Saigon had fallen. His home was no longer his home. Dao was forced to flee as a refugee, and he and his wife raised their family of five kids in Kentucky, a new home that… had its own share of absurd hardships. Dao was caught trafficking prescription drugs for sex and lost his medical license, after which he earned his income as a poker player. While I agree with his defenders that his rap sheet is irrelevant to the United Airlines incident, it’s relevant to me, since it helps us see Dao in a more complex, realistic light. Dao is not a criminal nor is he some industrious automaton who could escape the devastation of his homeland and, through a miraculous arc of resilience, become an upstanding doctor whose kids are also doctors. For many immigrants, if you move here with trauma, you’re going to do what it takes to get by. You cheat. You beat your wife. You gamble. You’re a survivor and, like most survivors, you’re a god-awful parent. Watching Dao, I thought of my father watching his own father being dragged out of his own home. I thought of Asians throughout history being dragged against their will, driven or chased out of their native homes, out of their adopted homes, out of their native country, out of their adopted country: ejected, evicted, exiled.”

Though some of Hong’s commentary and analyses may tread familiar ground for those already immersed in Asian American issues, I felt that she injected new depth to the conversation about Asian Americans in the United States. For example, I saw the publishing industry more clearly through Hong’s analysis of Jhumpa Lahiri’s work and how Lahiri’s preeminence in the literary sphere has forced the Asian American narrative to assimilate to a standard, comforting trope for the white gaze. Toward the end of the book, Hong drops – in the middle of a stunning self-analysis – a piercing truth about how Koreans’ fixation with double eyelid surgery stems from Dr. Ralph Millard, an American surgeon who tested the surgery on Korean sex workers to make them more appealing to GIs during the Korean War. As a somewhat big K-Pop fan (love me some Itzy and BlackPink) I have always found the Korean obsession with plastic surgery odd and superficial; Hong’s ability to link that obsession back to colonization and the imperialism of whiteness helped me see the truth, just like how many truths about Asian American identity and history have been erased or hidden from our view.

The personal components of this essay collection shine as well. Hong’s background as a poet comes as no surprise given how the scenes from her personal life felt so well-written, like you could imagine yourself experiencing her past with her. I literally cringed when she described a moment from her childhood when she watched a group of white kids make fun of her grandmother’s English, kick her onto the ground, and then laugh at her – it reminded me of my own grandmother and I just pulsated with hurt and anger reading that scene. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I felt such a sense of pride and camaraderie when Hong detailed her intense, magnetic friendship during her undergraduate years with Erin and Helen, two other Asian women artists, and how their friendship with one another both hurt at times while also pushed them all to a place of artistic self-confidence that transcended white male expectations. Hong invests her whole heart and mind into Minor Feelings, which shows through the major connections she makes between Asian Americans’ political placement in the United States and her personal experience as an artist, daughter, friend, and more. Here’s another passage that stood out to me, about Asian Americans needing to reckon with whiteness:

“I have to address whiteness because Asian Americans have yet to truly reckon with where we stand in the capitalist white supremacist hierarchy of this country. We are so far from reckoning with it that some Asians think that race has no bearing on their lives, that it doesn’t’ “come up,” which is as misguided as white people saying the same thing about themselves, not only because of discrimination we have faced but because of the entitlements we’ve been granted due to our racial identity. These Asians are my cousins; my ex-boyfriend; these Asians are myself, cocooned in Brooklyn, caught unawares on a nice warm day, thinking I don’t have to be affected by race; I only choose to think about it. I could live only for myself, for my immediate family, following the expectations of my parents, whose survivor instincts align with this country’s neoliberal ethos, which is to get ahead at the expense of anyone else while burying the shame that binds us. To varying degrees, all Asians who have grown up in the United States know intimately the same I have described; have felt its oily flame.”

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to everyone, though it may resonate most personally with East Asians who are 1.5 or 2nd generation living in the United States. I reflected a lot on my own parents and Asian American identity while reading Minor Feelings, and I feel more motivated to honor my parents’ complex experiences despite the difficulties in our relationship. I also feel, as I’ve shared about in several of my recent blog posts, more determined to dismantle white supremacy through being a loud and proud Vietnamese American who protests racism even when it makes white people uncomfortable. Hong acknowledges that this collection does not encompass the enormity or entirety of the Asian American experience, which I agree with. I hope this book can act as another launching point for further reflection and activism that includes and centers South Asians, queer Asian Americans, and more. For now, I feel grateful for this book’s existence and hope that it gains great traction in 2020 and beyond. ...more

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Feb 10, 2020 Jaclyn rated it it was amazing

I have never felt so seen, have never been able to put into words—much less effectively emote to others—feelings such as being gaslighted since childhood of my own experiences of racism as an Asian American and being made to feel like they’re not worthy of validation. I don’t think it was until I started working for an AAPI advocacy organization that I truly started my journey toward racial consciousness, precisely because of this phenomenon Hong calls “minor feelings”.

There are so many moments I have never felt so seen, have never been able to put into words—much less effectively emote to others—feelings such as being gaslighted since childhood of my own experiences of racism as an Asian American and being made to feel like they’re not worthy of validation. I don’t think it was until I started working for an AAPI advocacy organization that I truly started my journey toward racial consciousness, precisely because of this phenomenon Hong calls “minor feelings”.

There are so many moments in the book where I had never seen a particular emotional experience written down and speaking to me before: from watching your parents as a child being humiliated by white adults because of their struggles with English to the ways in which a post-2016 election world has triggered the trauma of racial bullying during childhood, or rather “the stress of its anticipation”. And yet it’s so much more complex than that. Throughout the whole book I kept taking photos of the pages as I read so that I could come back to those passages whenever. As a result my camera roll is just a bunch of snapshots of text.

There are certain chapters where I felt like it veered from the main thesis of the book (though still fantastic and compelling and gripping stories), and yet, I think Cathy Park Hong was doing what she mentioned is what writers should strive to do: show, not tell. These stories showed you what being invisibilized and fighting the forces that convince you you are invisible FEELS like. And it was effective.

The writing was so beautiful and flowy, but punchy, not the kind where it is so flowery that it was hard to read. She could pack so much gut and feeling in so few words (she is after all a poet).

I can see how this book may not resonate as strongly with all Asian Americans, particularly those who aren’t East Asian, women, cisgender, or 1.5/second generation, and people who have other overlapping and intersecting identities that may make the idea of “minor feelings” less comprehensive or complex enough in holistically capturing their experiences. But Hong does address this, and I think more than anything she meant it as a starting point in thinking about our Asian American identity, and not an end all be all concept.

Thank you Goodreads for this advanced readers copy! I am still shocked that of the dozens of books for which I have entered Goodreads giveaways, the one I finally won is the book I feel like I have waited my whole life for. ...more

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Jul 30, 2020 Adam Dalva rated it it was amazing

Devoured it - especially loved "An Education," about college friendships, and "Portrait of an Artist", a look at the horrendous killling of the great Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Cathy Park Hong is an excellent writer, and she provoked me in the best way - I thought, I adjusted, I saw the world differently ...more

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Dec 20, 2019 Nursebookie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netgalley, womensfiction, women-of-color, nonfiction, women-author, essays, race

When I heard about this book and received an Advanced Readers' Copy, I was drawn to the title and the author. I read it in a span of a week, because I wanted to thoroughly absorb, understand and really read Cathy Park Hong's words in this collection of incredibly powerful and raw essays that spoke to me as an Asian American woman. I felt that for once, someone put into words what I have felt all along but I never really had the courage to speak out loud or acknowledge, and Hong explains why, bea When I heard about this book and received an Advanced Readers' Copy, I was drawn to the title and the author. I read it in a span of a week, because I wanted to thoroughly absorb, understand and really read Cathy Park Hong's words in this collection of incredibly powerful and raw essays that spoke to me as an Asian American woman. I felt that for once, someone put into words what I have felt all along but I never really had the courage to speak out loud or acknowledge, and Hong explains why, beautifully in this book.

Some of the things that struck me in her book is Hong's mention of the "new racial awareness mediator" when you have to explain your race to someone, and that "Most Americans know nothing about Asian Americans. They think Chinese is synecdoche for Asians same way as Kleenex is for tissues". I definitely related to this when I am constantly explaining myself and my heritage to someone.

The essays come well researched as well and I loved learning about the history of our country's Manifest Destiny where Hong mentions on how three Chinese laborers died for every two miles of track for the transcontinental railroad, and at the completion of the railroad, not one photo was taken of a Chinese man in the celebratory photos.

Hong explores these minor feelings which she describes are the range of emotions mostly negative from everyday feelings of being slighted with racial undertones that others may conjure your own feelings as though made up or being overly sensitive.

Hong's mention of the 1992 LA Riots really resonated with me as I personally experienced this first hand being a witness to how my parents were so affected by this incident - having to come back to our business after looters have destroyed our family business. I didn't understand what was happening then but Hong was able to explain it well in the book.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Hong wrote this book with courage and all her heart - exposing her feelings with honesty and wit. Her writing is incredible and this is a true masterpiece. A dissertation to the Asian American experience. Required reading and a must read!

Brava! A standing ovation! ...more

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Aug 31, 2020 jenny✨ rated it really liked it

Shelves: author-of-colour, east-asian-rep, social-justice-and-race, beautiful-writing, auto-biography-memoir, books-i-loved, 2020, non-fic, essays

Can I write honestly? Not only about how much I’ve been hurt but how I have hurt others? And can I do it without steeping myself in guilt, since guilt demands absolution and is therefore self-serving? In other words, can I apologize without demanding your forgiveness? Where do I begin?

Minor Feelings marks my 150th book of 2020, and it’s a good one for a milestone! These essays, conveyed through discursive fragments, are written with such clever, powerful eloquence. I adored its intersectiona ...more

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Feb 22, 2020 Bkwmlee rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, asian-experience-or-author, netgalley-books

3.5 stars

Upon finishing Cathy Park Hong’s book of essays entitled Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning , I have to admit that I feel a bit conflicted. As an Asian American woman who is close in age to Hong and also grew up in the Los Angeles area like she did, there were many experiences she described in her essays that were absolutely familiar to me – for example, struggling with identity and belonging, being discriminated against due to my race, feeling like I oftentimes have to expl 3.5 stars

Upon finishing Cathy Park Hong’s book of essays entitled Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning , I have to admit that I feel a bit conflicted. As an Asian American woman who is close in age to Hong and also grew up in the Los Angeles area like she did, there were many experiences she described in her essays that were absolutely familiar to me – for example, struggling with identity and belonging, being discriminated against due to my race, feeling like I oftentimes have to explain my heritage to people due to preconceived biases stemming from ignorance – the list goes on and on. Because of these shared experiences, I am able to understand wholeheartedly where Hong is coming from in her essays, even though culturally, we are from completely different backgrounds (Hong is Korean American, I’m Chinese American).

Overall, I found Hong’s essay collection to be an insightful read and very different from a lot of what is typically written about identity and race, especially from an Asian American perspective. The basic premise that binds all of Hong’s essays together is the concept of “minor feelings,” which Hong describes as “the racialized range of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one’s perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed.” In essence, it is the recognition that the negative emotions many Asian Americans (and other minority groups) have to deal with on a daily basis – feelings of shame, self-doubt, paranoia, suspicion, melancholy, etc. – can be traced back to America’s history of imperialism and colonization of Asian nations, a history that resulted in the creation of an inherently racist capitalistic system that will constantly be in conflict with the reality of our racial identity. Amongst other things, Hong writes about the “weight of indebtedness” that is a constant presence in her life as well as the lives of most immigrants regardless of background, with the context of this “indebtedness” correlating to a “gratitude” of sorts for being able to make a life for ourselves in this country. All of Hong’s essays are infused with a raw honesty that is at the same time perceptive and intelligent, but also easy to grasp and understand.

With all that said however, going back to why I felt conflicted after reading this book -- while there is definitely much truth to what Hong wrote and several aspects of it did actually resonate with me, there was also a large portion that I felt strayed too far from my own personal reality. I’m not an activist and in fact, most of the time, I try to steer as clear away from politics as I possibly can. I also don’t spend every waking moment of my life thinking about race, identity, and/or how I fit into this world as an Asian American – not because I don’t care or that I’m okay with being complacent about the racial circumstances in our society or whatnot – but rather, the practical realities of my life don’t afford me the “luxury” of constantly dwelling on identity politics and race. Don’t get me wrong though – this doesn’t mean that if I see an injustice occurring, that I stand idly by instead of speaking up and fighting…if the circumstances warrant it, I will do what is necessary and also within my power to do. But by the same token, it would also be “unjust” in my opinion to judge those who choose not to fight, who choose not to rock the boat, who choose the path of least resistant because they are content with living an ordinary, peaceful existence, even if it means being largely invisible and/or complacent from an identity perspective. Forcing oneself to see everything through the lens of race and identity is exhausting and for me personally, that has never been how I want to go about my life. At the end of the day, the most important thing, for me at least, is respecting each other’s viewpoints and choices, especially if they are different from our own.

While my viewpoint may differ from Hong’s in many areas, I respect the fact that these essays reflect her personal thoughts and experiences and she doesn’t try to impose those onto us as readers. I also appreciate Hong’s unflinching honesty as well as her willingness to so candidly voice her feelings. Regardless, we definitely need more books like this one, where we get to hear different voices tell their stories – it takes a lot of courage to do so and that alone is already deserving of respect! Definitely a recommended read, though of course with the understanding that this is Hong’s personal perspective as an Asian American living in the United States and by no means does it represent all Asian Americans.

Received ARC from One World (Random House) via NetGalley.
...more

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Feb 04, 2021 emma rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, reviewed, library, recommend, 3-and-a-half-stars, diverse, non-ya

It takes reading this to realize two things:
1) There might not be any book quite like this one.
2) That's a sad thing.

Asian Americans have been underrepresented in both the increase in societal discussion of race, and in my literary attempts to respond to it. I've been attempting to remedy that this year in picking up more works by Asian authors, and I found this - half-memoir, half-antiracist manifesto with an acerbic, compulsively readable voice - to be an excellent way to start.

Sometimes our n ...more

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Feb 29, 2020 Chandra Claypool (WhereTheReaderGrows) rated it it was amazing

Wow. All the things I felt growing up put into a book and hearing my voice is at once disturbing and freeing at the same time. These essays at once give you history along with how Asian Americans feel in this world. Not white. Not black. Denied by both. Accepted by none.

"Asians lack presence. Asians take up apologetic space."

I have SO many things I want to say here and there are SO MANY quotes within this book. I remember in a literature class in college, we were reading a book that had an Asi Wow. All the things I felt growing up put into a book and hearing my voice is at once disturbing and freeing at the same time. These essays at once give you history along with how Asian Americans feel in this world. Not white. Not black. Denied by both. Accepted by none.

"Asians lack presence. Asians take up apologetic space."

I have SO many things I want to say here and there are SO MANY quotes within this book. I remember in a literature class in college, we were reading a book that had an Asian person as one of the characters and it touched on the tradition of taking off your shoes at the entry of the house. I remember one person saying Asians must be lazy and not wanting to clean and that's why they make people take off their shoes. Um, what? There will never be a house cleaner than my mom or my aunt's. I guarantee you that.

"Racial self hatred is seeing yourself the way whites see you, which turns you into your own worst enemy."

I went on a date in high school with a white guy and I remember him telling me he didn't believe in interracial relationships. I stood, dumbfounded because I'm a product of such relationship. But he said it wasn't the same because even though my mother is Korean, she still has white skin. No, she doesn't. Obviously we didn't go on another date but I was stunned. There is truth that is touched on within the book about how Asians are perceived as the "next white". No, we most definitely are not. While we are neither white, nor black, we are almost invisible at times - until it suits some other race's platform for us to be around.

"Patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it's more than a chat about race. It's ontological. It's like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Except it's even trickier than that. Because the person has all of western history, politics, literature and mass culture on their side, proving you don't exist."

As being only half Korean, I dealt with not being able to fit in anywhere. In the US, I'm just another Asian girl.. in Korea, I'm that American with the bug bites all over my face (freckles). My cousin being full Korean had her own issues to deal with and we've discussed how our experiences were different because of that.

I could go on an on and on but really, if you're Asian American, read this and feel seen. If you're not, read this and understand a bit please. ...more

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Mar 07, 2020 Rebekah rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, audiobook, memoirs

2.5 stars

In the first essay of this collection, Cathy Park Hong describes searching for a Korean therapist, falsely believing that their shared Koreanness will lead to a kinship that will make therapy more productive for her. Hong does find a Korean therapist, but the therapist turns her down without saying why, and Hong begins a jilted lover routine before finally realizing she needs a non-Korean therapist so her depression can get examined objectively, and so she can stop thinking her depressi 2.5 stars

In the first essay of this collection, Cathy Park Hong describes searching for a Korean therapist, falsely believing that their shared Koreanness will lead to a kinship that will make therapy more productive for her. Hong does find a Korean therapist, but the therapist turns her down without saying why, and Hong begins a jilted lover routine before finally realizing she needs a non-Korean therapist so her depression can get examined objectively, and so she can stop thinking her depression is a result of culture. Picking up this book, I was like Hong and she was the Korean therapist - because we're both Korean, because we're Asian American, this series of essays about that Asian American experience has to apply to me because we're a part of this shared universal culture. Obviously, that's not true, and maybe it's my fault for having this dumb mindset going into this book, but I related to almost nothing Hong wrote about. I'm Korean; I'm Asian American, but Hong and I don't have any shared experiences (except maybe experiencing racism), and that did make this book a let down.

There are a couple of reasons why I can't relate to Hong's "Asian American Reckoning," first and foremost is probably because I'm an adoptee and didn't grow up in an Asian household or with Asian culture, and I am younger than her, so the world has changed in some ways. Despite how readily I can identify why Hong's experiences aren't universal, Hong writes in a way that generalizes Asian American experience and I didn't understand why.

It may be petty of me, but Hong's personality really turned me off. In the essays about her life in academia, Hong talks a lot about her arrogance - and this sense of self-importance really permeated a lot of her essays. Personally, this is a personality trait I dislike in anyone, and so being confronted by this personality trait made this reading experience more unpleasant. I also felt like she projected a lot of her identity issues onto others - the prime example being her experience at the nail salon being tended to by a teenage Vietnamese boy and Hong figuring their terse encounter was a result of both of them struggling with their self-hatred over being Asian. That essay made me scratch my head and wonder, "do I still hate myself for being Asian? I used to, when I was young and surrounded by racist non-Asian peers, but not anymore, I don't think." Maybe I still equate self-hatred with being young, so I thought this whole exchange was immature on Hong's part. I don't know. Maybe Hong would say I think this way because I still hate myself for being Asian.

I think I couldn't enjoy this book because my mindset and worldview just clash too much with Hong's, and I don't think her generalizations about Asian American experience characterize my experiences at all. I also came to the conclusion that I do not like essays on cultural criticism because I do not actually care about other people's hot takes. ...more

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Apr 14, 2020 Maxwell rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

I found this book at times riveting and personal (in that the author shares some private moments that completely captivate the reader), and at other times distancing and more like a historical text (neither of those are bad things). It balances this place of analysis and memoir unlike most non-fiction I read which leans to either side but doesn't find that middle ground.

She reckons with her identity as an Asian American while exploring larger themes of unity, art, friendship, mental health and m ...more

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Sep 08, 2020 David rated it liked it

In this collection of essays Cathy Park Hong examines her racial identity as an Asian, cis female, professional, atheist living in the United States. Immediately she's struck by how minor and non-urgent this feels. Compared to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and the shooting of Jacob Blake her specific griefs can feel small. She wrestles with this and the presumptuousness to think she could invoke any sort of Asian we.

These minor feelings in response to micro-aggressions are easily d ...more

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Feb 14, 2020 Auderoy rated it really liked it

QUOTES:

There was no reason for me to be depressed. But anytime I was happy, the fear of an awful catastrophe would follow, so I made myself feel awful to preempt the catastrophe from hitting.

For as long as I could remember, I have struggled to prove myself into existence.

In the popular imagination, Asian Americans inhabit a vague purgatorial status: not white enough nor black enough; distrusted by African Americans, ignored by whites, unless we're being used by whites to keep the black man down. ...more

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Dec 10, 2020 Monica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: aoc, biography-memoirs, female-author-nonfic, essays, pub_2020s, nonfic_challenge_2020, aoc-female, pub-2020, x-reread-eventually, history

Excellent essay collection!! New (to me) perspective. Really enjoyed this!!

4.5 Stars

Read on kindle

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Mar 22, 2020 Ming rated it it was amazing

I read this book in 2 days! It's very compelling and accessible.

This is one of the most clear-eyed and insightful discussions about being Asian American and about race in America. (No, never a hyphen in "Asian American" when talking about the people! Hong doesn't use a hyphen either! The NYT "style" is wrong.)

She is straight-forward and vulnerable in equal measure. Hong conveys insights and analyses that are sharp and provocative. And it is extremely personal, unapologetically personal.

As import ...more

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Jan 27, 2020 Nicholas rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arc, 5-stars, essays-memoir, 2020, by-aapi-writers, favorites

I am obsessed with this book. This book is Mariah Carey singing “Why you so obsessed with me?” and I'm whoever that song is written about (rumor is it’s about Eminem). Minor Feelings is a thought-provoking, insightful, smart collection of essays that delve into Asian American history, identity and psychology. But rather than rehashing and reexamining the same stereotypes and issues or throwing up a trendy #RepresentationMatters, Cathy Park Hong gives us an honest examination and refreshing persp ...more

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May 29, 2020 Mehrsa rated it liked it

There were a few essays in here that were really good, but most of them were pretty disjointed and over-written,

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Feb 08, 2020 Sachi Argabright rated it it was amazing

MINOR FEELINGS is an extremely honest and original collection of essays focused on the Asian American experience. By blending history and cultural criticism with stories from her own past, this book highlights the complexities of being Asian in America. Many don’t realize that the Asian American demographic is so wide, and many times the group is reduced to and/or misidentified as Chinese or Japanese. Even within groups such as Southeast Asian, South Asian, East Asian, and Pacific Islander there MINOR FEELINGS is an extremely honest and original collection of essays focused on the Asian American experience. By blending history and cultural criticism with stories from her own past, this book highlights the complexities of being Asian in America. Many don’t realize that the Asian American demographic is so wide, and many times the group is reduced to and/or misidentified as Chinese or Japanese. Even within groups such as Southeast Asian, South Asian, East Asian, and Pacific Islander there are many ethnicities. This book explores many issues including income disparities within the Asian American community, the model minority myth, representation in culture and media, racial self hatred, white tears, slavery, immigration bans, and racial purgatory.

I love taking notes when I read books, especially nonfiction works, and I took SO many notes as I was reading this book. I’ve never read anything that dives so deep on the Asian American experience, and I’m glad a book like this has FINALLY been published. This book is harsh, but it needs to be to dispel the illusion of the model minority image Asian Americans have. This book really punches you in the gut with an opening essay that sets the tone for the rest of the book, and I loved every single word. While I wish there were more comments about biracial or mixed race Asian Americans, I was still able to identify with many issues. For example, Hong notes that Asians are often caught in racial purgatory because they’re not black or white, and I have often felt that way as a biracial individual but in a different way (not feeling white or Asian enough).

I really enjoyed this collection, and I feel like this would be a great discussion piece for classes studying Asian American history and experiences. Great for readers who want to learn more about the Asian American experience, or for Asian Americans who want to see themselves represented on the page.

[ I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review]
...more

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Feb 26, 2020 l. rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2020, biographical, non-fiction, colonialism-racism-etc, women-gender, american-lit

The blurb: "Asian Americans inhabit a purgatorial status: neither white enough nor black enough" is extremely bad and a good reflection of the book. ...more

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May 03, 2020 Vivian rated it did not like it

this book is problematic in so many ways. it is a needless take down on brown people from a faux superior academic lens.

it is the typical antagonization of dark asians by a neoliberal east-asian who is striving desperately to uphold the model minority myth and her proximity to whiteness (while discussing the model minority myth, which is truly confounding.)

"But the status of our model minority can change. Currently, Indian Americans are one of the highest-earning groups among Asian Americans, b ...more

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Jan 29, 2020 Never Without a Book rated it it was amazing

No words I put here today can express how amazing this book is. Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong is just flipping BRILLIANT, yes, in all caps! As a minority working in corporate America, I felt like Asians were the “preferred minority”, Hong mentions this and what she says about the topic was like a light bulb turn on. Reading about Asian Americans suffrage of racism and discrimination, blew my mind and I was taken back on how much some of their pain reflects on tho ...more

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Dec 05, 2020 Rincey rated it really liked it

Shelves: poc-author, favorites

Part cultural history, part memoir. Some of the essays hit me more than others but overall a worthwhile read

Watch me discuss it more here: https://youtu.be/B72trBIQVSA ...more

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Jul 09, 2020 Sandra rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I’ve spent my entire life grappling with my identity since arriving in the US from Taiwan at age 9. I was brought up to never forget my Chinese heritage and language, while simultaneously trying to assimilate into an American culture. I finally had a reckoning of my identity during college at UC Berkeley, and once again during this Trump-era rage against race. I am grateful to my Goodreads friend, Thomas, for recommending this phenomenal book to me, because it articulates so well my feelings of I’ve spent my entire life grappling with my identity since arriving in the US from Taiwan at age 9. I was brought up to never forget my Chinese heritage and language, while simultaneously trying to assimilate into an American culture. I finally had a reckoning of my identity during college at UC Berkeley, and once again during this Trump-era rage against race. I am grateful to my Goodreads friend, Thomas, for recommending this phenomenal book to me, because it articulates so well my feelings of being an Asian American in this country today.

In this compelling collection of essays, Cathy Park Hong examines the Asian American identity by discussing her personal experiences through lenses of psychology, history, and activism. Her words are so accurate in tone and sentiments to my thoughts and questions regarding my AA identity:
• How are AAs perceived? Asians lack presence. Asians take up apologetic space. We don’t have enough presence to be considered real minorities. We’re not racial enough to be token. We’re so past racial we’re silicon. (Oh wait. Whose exactly is this mouthpiece?)
• How do I describe the racism/microaggressions I have experienced soley because of how I look? Minor feelings: the racialized ranged of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one’s perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed. Minor feelings arise, for instance, upon hearing a slight, knowing it’s racial, and being told, “Oh, that’s all in your head.”
• Is it my introversion or my AA identity that makes me feel invisible? We have been cowed by the lie that we have it good. We keep our heads down and work hard, believing that our intelligence will reward us with our dignity, but our diligence will only make us disappear. By not speaking up, we perpetuate the myth that our shame is cause by our repressive culture and the country we fled, whereas America has given us nothing but opportunity.
• What does racism feel like on the receiving end? This trigger does not necessarily mean recalling a specific racist incident but a flashback to a feeling: a thrum of fear and shame, a tight animal alertness.
• How do I feel about my privilege as an AA woman when I talk to AAs who don’t understand BLM protests and or take racism seriously because some consider us to be “white-adjacent”? Asian Americans have yet to truly reckon with where we stand in the capitalist white supremacist hierarchy of this country. We are so far from reckoning with it that some Asians think that race has no bearing on their lives, that it doesn’t “come up,” which is as misguided as white people saying the same thing about themselves, not only because of discrimination we have faced but because of the entitlements we’ve been granted due to our racial identity.

Hong addresses a wide scope of identity topics using personal anecdotes of her life with respect to art, poetry, closest friends, family, and as a writer/teacher/changemaker. Her voice is authoritative and captivating, her opinions backed by historical implications as well as her remarkable tone of persuasion. Hong references scholars, writers, artists, activists, and more. As inspirational as this work seems, it does not feel complete; I think she has just begun, and I believe she has so much more to say and share. I look forward to more of her perceptive and provocative voice and writing because there is little AA representation and we long for more intelligent, well-written, and progressive rhetoric. Highly recommend to AAs or anyone wanting to learn more about the AA perspective during this highly contentious time for people of color. ...more

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Aug 06, 2020 Esther Espeland rated it it was amazing

Just terrific! The kind of book that I could tell I loved just ten pages in. A stellar example of how to write a book of essays: each balances history, personal memory, and cultural commentary. This was everything I wanted from The Souls of Yellow Folk by Wesley Yang but didn’t get. I found her essay on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha especially moving (cw for SA). Obviously I was tickled by her scathing review of Oberlin campus culture.

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May 28, 2020 Kelly added it

Shelves: non-fiction, audio-book, read-in-2020

Essential reading, and I cannot recommend the audiobook more highly, as the author performs it absolutely perfectly.

This is about Park Hong wrestling with her lived experience as an Asian American and what that label and identity even means. She's Korean, but what context does -- or doesn't -- that add to the label she's been given? How does it play out in what she writes? In what ways has she or hasn't she been able to truly and authentically express herself, given how limited and colonial the ...more

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Jul 26, 2020 Wendy Hu rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

When I first started reading this book, I felt that the writing came from a place of such rage and made such sweeping generalizations that I found hard to relate to. Having taken a more traditionally Asian route (engineering) and having grown up Chinese in a diverse part of Canada, I've been fortunate enough to avoid many of Hong's experiences of racism especially in the writing industry in America. As I continued reading, I found myself identifying and sympathizing with some of her experiences When I first started reading this book, I felt that the writing came from a place of such rage and made such sweeping generalizations that I found hard to relate to. Having taken a more traditionally Asian route (engineering) and having grown up Chinese in a diverse part of Canada, I've been fortunate enough to avoid many of Hong's experiences of racism especially in the writing industry in America. As I continued reading, I found myself identifying and sympathizing with some of her experiences and behavioral tendencies surrounding issues involving lack of self-confidence and individualism that Hong argues are engraved in Asian Americans by way of an inherently white capitalistic system that invalidates their struggles.

I am reminded of "Quiet" by Susan Cain where in a chapter on cultural differences, Cain argues that humility and introverted-ness are rewarded in Asian culture and Asian school systems, thereby rationalizing the disproportionate amount of introverts observed in Asian Americans. At the time, this idea that quietness/reservedness was a trait built in to Asian culture resonated with me. While Cain's argument may be true, the cultural context that exists in Asian countries is not present in America, rendering her justification incomplete. Reading Hong's collection of essays, I've come to realize that Cain's argument completely overlooked the oppression experienced by Asians in America - the "ni-hao's", "chink" remarks, looks of pity when speaking with an accent, and and other subtle "minor feelings" that ultimately strip a minority of their sense of belonging and perpetuate a desire to be as small and as hidden as possible to avoid humiliation. I appreciated the short history lessons scattered throughout the essays to compliment Hong's argument that Asian Americans are made to feel like outsiders through the country's history of discriminating immigration policies and imperialism.

The essays were deeply personal but I wouldn't go so far as to generalize the minor feelings she describes to all Asian Americans, especially those outside of East Asia. The lack of formality in her personal essays was very effective in exposing her personality. Hong harbors a lot of salt (for lack of a better word) towards many of her personal experiences and various people in her life. I, too, identify as a salty person, which made her all the more relatable, but in the context of the essays and the book, was admittedly quite off-putting. I think she projected her own personal feelings, opinions, and experiences onto others a little too much.

I've always been iffy about collections of essays because they tend to get rambly and lack cohesion - this unfortunately wasn't much different. Despite its shortcomings, this book is the only one I've come across addressing Asian American oppression in such a direct, raw, and authentic way. Overall, its existence as a book feels very necessary and was a very thought-provoking read. ...more

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Apr 12, 2020 Jenna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: as-am-or-asian-british-writers

"[M]inor feelings: the racialized range of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one's perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed."

Hands vibrating with excitement, I rushed to buy this essay collection after reading an essay that appeared last month in the New York Times, "The Slur I Never Expected to Hear in 2020." That essay, while not included in this book, nevertheless motivated me to buy it by reminding me what a nimble, nuanced intellect Hong's is, and what a much-needed tonic is her voice: braiding the heart-poundingly personal with the pavement-stompingly political, giving the gift of stylet-sharp attention to issues too often glossed over in mainstream circles, especially with regard to Asian American experiences.

"As the poet Prageeta Sharma said, Americans have an expiration date on race the way they do for grief. At some point, they expect you to get over it."

"It's hard to imagine that the origin of Asian America came from a radical place, because the moniker is now flattened and emptied of any blazing political rhetoric...."

In her writing, Hong draws on her own day-to-day life, her childhood and coming-of-age memories, and her violent Korean family history, in addition to an impressively broad range of cultural touchpoints: artists and theorists, sure, but also stand-up comedians, popular TV shows, and viral news tidbits (e.g., the story of a passenger forcibly dragged off an overbooked United Airlines plane in 2017). The book's first essay, "United," is a blaze of ideas and eloquence that sweeps you away; the next three essays are virtually equally strong; the two essays after that, the long "An Education" and "Portrait of an Artist," steeped as they are in love for a rather particular kind of avant-garde art, are somewhat slower going, though one is still grateful for the necessary light they shine on important topics (friendships among Asian American women creatives and sexual violence experienced by Asian American women, respectively). The last essay, "The Indebted," covers some of the same territory erin Khue Ninh did in her 2011 book Ingratitude, reminding me I'm due for a reread of Ninh's book and making me wish it had received more attention in its time, and also now. In sum, though, Minor Feelings struck me as a revelation, a book I'm almost surprised didn't exist until now, but now that it does, I am thankful for it. ...more

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Sep 15, 2020 Megan rated it it was amazing

Outstanding. Each essay in here is substantial and impactful; I loved reading all of them, especially the one chronicling the author's artistic formation via her relationships with two close friends in college and the essay on Richard Pryor, Blackness and Asianness, comedy and poetry. The profile of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha is important and tough. Among the best works of nonfiction I've read recently. ...more

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Jun 03, 2020 Ashley rated it really liked it

Shelves: americana, essays-and-stories, non-fiction, class-gender-race, books-about-writers, what-s-this-art-thing-all-about-yo, immigrants-we-get-the-job-done, not-quite-five-stars-but-sooo-close

I set my entire June TBR list over two months ago, including this book, but it turned out to be an eerily prescient choice. When I was reading the bits about the 1992 L.A. riots, and the parts where she directly addressed anti-back racism in America, I felt such a weird sense of momentous synchronicity. Anyway, the book.

This was nearly a five star read for me, and will likely be a five star book for many. My reasons for not giving it the full five are purely personal preference, and I'll get int I set my entire June TBR list over two months ago, including this book, but it turned out to be an eerily prescient choice. When I was reading the bits about the 1992 L.A. riots, and the parts where she directly addressed anti-back racism in America, I felt such a weird sense of momentous synchronicity. Anyway, the book.

This was nearly a five star read for me, and will likely be a five star book for many. My reasons for not giving it the full five are purely personal preference, and I'll get into them later. Mostly, this book is great. Hong, by profession a poet and an academic, writes in a style that is (mostly) straightforward, intelligent, and darkly humorous. She writes openly about how the style and subject matter she has chosen goes against cultural norms and artistic conventions. The book is structured in the form of seven personal essays, but she mixes in cultural criticism, art criticism, and political and social criticism interchangeably. This book, she says, was a challenge to herself to write against how she had been conditioned: to blend into the background, to go along, to accept the dominating narrative of what it means to be Asian American or an immigrant, to be a minority in America.

The book's title is a reference to the feelings that Hong has, and that other Asian Americans and people of color have, when their lived experience is in direct conflict with the dominating narratives of American culture.

". . . minor feelings are not generated from major change but from lack of change, in particular, structural racial and economic change. Rather than using racial trauma as a dramatic stage for individual growth, the literature of minor feelings explores the trauma of a racist capitalist system that keeps the individual in place. It's playing tennis 'while black' and dining out 'while black.' It's hearing the same verdict when testimony after testimony has been given."

Hong writes around or near (her terms) the experiences of black people and other people of color, but her particular focus is the experience of being Asian in America, those things that don't fit in with the common image of "the good immigrant" or the "smart, studious Asian" who is "almost white, and aren't you lucky?" (She also attempts to deal with the all-encompassing label "Asian American," which homogenizes various Asian cultures into one monoculture, separate from the "norm" of the white middle class.)

It's not an easy read, emotionally speaking, but that was straight up Hong's purpose in writing. She writes to make you uncomfortable, she writes with an audience in mind (a no-no in poetry). She writes things that she has been censored (or self-censored) from writing before. A lot of the book is her trying to work out her thoughts.

My only criticism, and it feels slightly wrong to call it that because it's mostly my personal preference, is that occasionally she lets her inner academic out, the part of academia that drools over critical theory. I left academia in part so I would not have to read or think about men like Frantz Fanon ever again. In select places throughout the book, she quotes or ruminates on ideas put forth by writers and theorists like him, when I feel her points are much stronger when she backs away from that type of writing. I just find it unpleasant, how good ideas are constantly being lost in the struggle to impress or be the smartest, or to see just how impenetrable one can make one's own writing, so that others will have to prove their intelligence in order to comprehend you. She herself does not come across like that at all, so it's jarring when she quotes someone much more formal and obtuse than she is.

"It makes me worried about the future, about this nation's inborn capacity to forget, about the powers that be who always win and take over the narrative. Already, 'woke' is a hashtag that's now mocked, when being awake is not a singular revelation but a long-term commitment fueled by constant reevaluation."

All in all, highly recommend this one.

[4.5 stars]

Quotes hidden behind spoiler tag because they are long. (view spoiler)[

"Minor feelings occur when American optimism is enforced upon you, which contradicts your own racialized reality, thereby creating a static of cognitive dissonance. You are told, 'Things are so much better,' while you think, Things are the same. You are told, 'Asian Americans are so successful,' while you feel like a failure. This optimism sets up false expectations that increase these feelings of dysphoria. A 2017 study found that the ideology of America as a fair meritocracy led to more self-doubt and behavioral problems among low-income black and brown sixth graders because, as one teacher said, 'they blame themselves for problems they can't control.'

Minor feelings are also the emotions we are accused of having when we decide to be difficult—in other words, when we decide to be honest. When minor feelings are finally externalized, they are interpreted as hostile, ungrateful, jealous, depressing, and belligerent, affects ascribed to racialized behavior that whites consider out of line. Our feelings are overreactions because our lived experiences of structural inequality are not commensurate with their deluded reality."

- - -

"It's also human nature to repel shame by penalizing and refusing continued engagement with the source of the shame. Most white Americans live in segregated environments, which, as Alcoff writes, 'protects and insulates them from race-based stress.' As a result, any proximity to minorities—seeing Latinx families move into their town, watching news clips of black protestors chanting, 'I can't breathe,' in Grand Central Station—sparks intolerable discomfort. Suddenly Americans feel self-conccious of their white identity and this self-consciousness misleads them into thinking their identity is under threat. In feeling wrong, they feel wronged. In being asked to be made aware of racial oppression, they feel oppressed. While we laugh at white tears, white tears can turn dangerous. White tears, as Damon Young explains in The Root, are why defeated Southerners refused to accept the freedom of black slaves and formed the Ku Klux Klan. And white tears are why 63 percent of white men and 53 percent of white women elected a malignant man-child as their leader. For to be aware of history, they would be forced to be held accountable, and rather than face that shame, they'd rather, by any means necessary, maintain their innocence."

- - -

"At the time of my writing, this country has seen a retrenchment of identities on both sides of the political spectrum. The rise of white nationalism has led to many nonwhites defending their identities with rage and pride as well as demanding reparative action to compensate for centuries of whites' plundering from non-Western cultures. But a side effect of this justified rage has been a 'stay in your lane' politics in which artists and writers are asked to speak only from their personal ethnic experiences. Such a politics not only assumes racial identity is pure—while ignoring the messy lived realities in which racial groups overlap—but reduces racial identity to intellectual property.

When we are inspired by a poem or a novel, our human impulse is to share it so that, as Lewis Hyde writes, it leaves a trail of 'interconnected relationships in its wake.' But in the market economy, art is a commodity removed from circulation and kept. If the work of art circulates, it circulates for profit, which has been grossly reaped by white authorship. Speaking on this subject, Amiri Baraka offers an invaluable quote: 'All cultures learn from each other. The problem is that if the Beatles tell me that they learned everything they know from Blind Willie, I want to know why Blind Willie is still running an elevator in Jackson, Mississippi.'

We must make right the unequal distributions but we must do so without forgetting the immeasurable value of cultural exchange, in what Hyde calls the gift economy. In reacting against the market economy, we have internalized market logic where culture is hoarded as if it's a product that will depreciate in value if shared with others; where instead of decolonizing English, we are carving up English into hostile nation-states. The soul of innovation thrives on cross-cultural inspiration. If we are restricted to our lanes, culture will die."

(hide spoiler)] ...more

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Jun 12, 2020 Vipassana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: giveaway, non-fiction, north-america, biographies-memoirs-journals, culture

My term “minor feelings” is deeply indebted to theorist Sianne Ngai, who wrote extensively on the affective qualities of ugly feelings, negative emotions—like envy, irritation, and boredom—symptomatic of today’s late-capitalist gig economy. Like ugly feelings, minor feelings are “non-cathartic states of emotion” with “a remarkable capacity for duration."

Cathy Park Hong has written a rich exploration of race from the perspective of Asians - acknowledging the pervasive racism both within the ...more

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About Cathy Park Hong

Cathy Park Hong

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Cathy Park Hong’s book of creative nonfiction, Minor Feelings, was published in Spring 2020 by One World/Random House (US) and Profile Books (UK). She is also the author of poetry collections Engine Empire, published in 2012 by W.W. Norton, Dance Dance Revolution, chosen by Adrienne Rich for the Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Translating Mo'um. Hong is the recipient of the Windham-Campbell Pri ...more

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“Patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it’s more than a chat about race. It’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Except it’s even trickier than that. Because the person has all of Western history, politics, literature, and mass culture on their side, proving that you don’t exist.” — 54 likes

“When I hear the phrase “Asians are next in line to be white,” I replace the word “white” with “disappear.” Asians are next in line to disappear. We are reputed to be so accomplished, and so law-abiding, we will disappear into this country’s amnesiac fog. We will not be the power but become absorbed by power, not share the power of whites but be stooges to a white ideology that exploited our ancestors. This country insists that our racial identity is beside the point, that it has nothing to do with being bullied, or passed over for promotion, or cut off every time we talk. Our race has nothing to do with this country, even, which is why we’re often listed as “Other” in polls and why we’re hard to find in racial breakdowns on reported rape or workplace discrimination or domestic abuse. It’s like being ghosted, I suppose, where, deprived of all social cues, I have no relational gauge for my own behavior. I ransack my mind for what I could have done, could have said. I stop trusting what I see, what I hear. My ego is in free fall while my superego is boundless, railing that my existence is not enough, never enough, so I become compulsive in my efforts to do better, be better, blindly following this country’s gospel of self-interest, proving my individual worth by expanding my net worth, until I vanish.” — 33 likes

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