From Little Tokyo, with Love Quotes

“It blows my mind that they all have felt this way. That belonging isn't as easy for other people as I seem to think it is. That everyone, at some point, doesn't feel like a whole version of themselves.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“Because there's nothing wrong with being angry. You need that anger to tell you when something's not right. To tell you when you care. To show you when you need to fight hard for what you want and stand up for the people you love.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“It's like no one sees all of me, exactly. Because no one wants to.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“It's like you can't even bear to hope for this incredible, potentially life-changing thing because not getting it would be way too devastating. But then actually getting it could also be devastating, in different ways. You don't want to feel that way, so you're trying to avoid it by feeling...nothing.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“It’s like whatever spell was keeping his noble-prince persona in place is melting away, layer by layer, and now I can see him for what he really is. First he morphs into a fairy tale villain, a sneering troll under a bridge. And then a sad little boy who isn’t doing anything with his life except drumming up drama, obeying his father’s toxic wishes, and bullying everyone “beneath” him so he can feel important.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“It’s your whole fucked-up family. You just happen to be the most fucked-up. And no matter how badly you want it”—he smirks again—“you will never belong here.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“Everything I posted is true—and for the sake of our community, I’m just so relieved all your family’s disgusting scandals are finally exposed. That none of you will be part of Nikkei Week and our great traditions now.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“When she shows up again in the movies . . .” Auntie Och shrugs. “Easier to act like they never see her before. Easier to pretend she’s a whole new person.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“could not see how that would be good for you. Grace and I finally had a huge fight when you were five. Twelve years ago. And I told her that she could keep the money she had started to send back, we didn’t need it. We haven’t spoken since.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“I guess a pregnant fifteen-year-old was just too much for people to handle.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“I really wish so many of our communities would just, like, acknowledge that anger isn’t always a bad emotion,” Joanna continues. “Sometimes it’s there to let you know when something’s wrong or to protect you from being mistreated or to tell you that you care. You can’t just reject it—you have to let yourself feel it, make room for it, or all that repressing will burn you up inside. You have to figure out a way to channel it. That’s what I finally realized I had to do.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“As I continue my trek, I feel more and more like Dorothy getting her first taste of Oz, or a confused Alice right after she was plunked into Wonderland. I see various costumed people marching by, wearing all sorts of things. A woman dressed as a pancake, pacing back and forth and studying her lines.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“I think she’s actually about to eat people and have her revenge on all of humanity,” I retort. He just grins at me. “But maybe she could do both,” I amend.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“feel that way, too, Rika,” Eliza says, turning to me. “A lot of the kids in our class have teased me for being an ‘Asian stereotype’ because I’m good at judo. Even though I am in fact a real person, not some cartoon character. And they seem to feel extra comfortable teasing me because I’m so nice.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“And don’t even get me started on the anti-Blackness in the Korean side of my family,” Mason says, slouching back in his seat. “Fuck that, we’re all Asian—and here, we celebrate that.” He flashes me a charming grin. “Consider yourself celebrated, eh, Rika Rakuyama?”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“It’s like we’re both dancing around an electric fence, the desire to reach out and touch it irresistible, the knowledge that we can’t irrefutable.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“What that Craig guy said to you wasn’t just, like, teasing,” he continues. “It was cruel. You said you’re worried about destroying things, but some things need to be destroyed. That doesn’t make you a monster. Not in the way you’re thinking, anyway.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“see passion. I see that you care so much about things—about your family, protecting the people you love, not wanting to hurt them in any way. But I think sometimes that’s hurting you.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“Yeah. They started calling her Mulan. In a way that was definitely not meant as a compliment—and Belle always wanted to be Cinderella anyway, so she started crying. So I, um . . . I popped their balloons.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“There are definitely Japanese people who think I’m just, like, white with a little sprinkle of soy sauce. Or some kind of aberration, an unfortunate dilution of pure Asianness. But it’s not like white people look at my face and think I’m one of them.” I think of all the Beckys who want to hear my accent, all the fetishizing white guys who have said truly disgusting things to my face, all the grown adults who compliment”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“Oh god. Are you one of those ‘New York is the best city ever, and glitzy, fake-ass LA cannot ever hope to compare’ snobs?”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“Yeah, I gotcha—shame, duty, family, community secrets. I’m familiar with all of these things thanks to growing up in not one but two Asian cultures”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“You were so insistent yesterday about not being a princess. And anyone who’s that averse to being called a princess is most definitely not a Grace Kimura fan. She’s princessdom personified.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“I feel Rory squeezing my hand, Belle messing with my hair. I love them and I know they mean well—but they’re trying to soothe something that can never be soothed, to slap a coating of princess over the messy remnants of my snarling monster.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“How Auntie Suzy did her Good Asian Duty by taking care of family. How my mother was such a tragedy, she’d had such potential before she got pregnant at fifteen—so beautiful and charismatic, able to charm the pants off of anyone she met with a smile. How it must be tough on the remaining Rakuyamas since I look so . . . different”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“It’s just that I want her to open up to my version of fairy tales, my melancholy stories from Japanese folklore. Where the endings are often bittersweet—emphasis on the “bitter.” Where it’s possible for, say, a girl with a dead mom and a deadbeat dad to triumph somehow, even if it means casting aside idealized notions of love and turning into a monster.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“Cinderella’s stepsisters cut off their toes to fit into the glass slipper,” I fire back. “That’s the real story—not exactly happily ever after.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“Or the anime-obsessed white girls who frequent my Aunties’ katsu restaurant and order me to speak to them in “an authentic Japanese accent.” I once dumped a full can of Coke on Queen Becky, the Ultimate White Girl Who Just, Like, Loves Asian Culture, and it felt so good”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love

“I’m really trying not to deploy my temper—Auntie Och calls it “Rika-chan’s kaiju,” or giant monster, after all the Japanese creature movies she watches on “the YouTube,” holding her phone screen way too close to her face.”
― Sarah Kuhn, From Little Tokyo, with Love