It's time for another book review! This is a particularly interesting read for those of you who have experience living as a minority or immigrant. But the major theme of this book is more than just ethnic: it explores the question of identity. Something everyone has wrestled with in one way or another.
So let's dive right in!
Overview
Alex Tizon takes an eye-opening look at the experience and psyche of the Asian American male. This book is Tizon's masterpiece, the culmination of a lifelong journey of doubt, disillusionment, and ultimately, self-discovery. He was driven by this one question: what is my place in this world as an Asian man, and especially in the West?
As a Filipino American child of immigrants, his search for his Asian identity started at a young age, before he even knew what he was looking for. He was drawn to portrayals in the media and collected "samples" with an inquisitive mind of Asian appearances in the news and on TV. His childhood in America often reminded him that he was "other," and he watched the experiences of his parents through their wins and losses, struggling to make it in the "land of the giants."
Tizon observed the evolution of Asian American identity in the West, from explicit discrimination against Japanese Americans during WWII and yellowface in the media to how modern Asian men and women view themselves. Looking beneath the surface, it seems that a running theme is the primary concern with how one's "Asian-ness" is viewed from the outside (i.e., Americans). There isn't an apparent drive to embrace one's racial heritage, but to fit in—to be good enough—despite it.
He touched on the topics that commonly arises when discussing Asian American identity, such as:
- The "fetishization" of Asian women
- The "emasculation" of Asian men (and where the stereotype of the small Asian dick might've come from)
- His father's struggle with being a man and how the insecurity was passed down to him.
- How "whiteness" was seen as a coveted status to be achieved — yet never is.
Tizon's journey drew him to Asia, especially his motherland of the Philippines. His quest: to wonder if Filipinos had a place of strength and equality in the global mind. Or were they doomed to a position of servitude under the looming shadow of the West?
Tizon wrapped up his moving story with observations of how Asian Americans have made tremendous progress in the eyes of the world. Today, there are many more Asian achievers and role models than there were when he was growing up. The book ends on an optimistic note of hope that one day, soon, Asian Americans will finally be "one of us." And a thought that maybe if we have more role models with our shared ancestry, more young Asians would have an easier journey discovering their "worthy origin and worthwhile destiny."
What I thought
Thus far, few books have resonated with me as deeply as Tizon's part-memoir, part-cultural study. Although he and I are of different generations and experiencing different Americas, separated by about 50 years, his struggles and observations about being an Asian in the West found an echo in my own story. The journey I had embarked on, and am still embarking on, to understand my Asian self finds its reflection in these pages with sometimes uncanny resemblance.
Tizon is an amazing writer, evidenced by his longtime career in journalism and his Pulitzer Prize award. He expertly and seamlessly weaves between autobiographical tales, historical accounts, personal reflections, and rigorous interviews, all with a melodic, elegant style of prose that carried me effortlessly on through the pages.
Tizon recounts his journey of piecing together the puzzle of his Asian self. Some pieces were new to me, which I eagerly shelved in my brain. Other pieces I was already familiar with from my own investigations and slowly developing puzzle. What I was really hoping for, the deepest reason I picked up this book, was to see where these puzzle pieces ultimately led Tizon to in the end. What were his conclusions? Could his more-completed puzzle help me further mine along?
It seems that, in the end, Tizon had arrived at a more nuanced view of what it means to be Asian and a man. And an Asian man. The cultural consciousness of Asians have grown more multi-faceted over the previous decades, and Asians are now farther along than they ever have been in America. Our understand of manhood has also grown more nuanced in the twenty-first century. Perhaps this is part of the integration process.
Tizon observed that everyone inherits some type of shame, everyone is invisible in some way, and everyone has a hole to climb out of. It's also interesting that the West may be slowly coming around to the ancient Chinese concept of wen wu. Maybe Asia has had the final, biggest piece of the puzzle of masculinity all this time.
I was particularly moved by Tizon's recounting of his relationship with his father. Ever since they immigrated to America, his father never achieved the same status he had before — nor his sense of self-worth. He watched his father struggle throughout the rest of his career in the "land of the giants," but he couldn't really understand at the time what insecurities his father must have been going through, though he never showed it.
As he was nearing the end of his life, his father kept apologizing — for what? For not being good enough. He felt he could have done more, done better. He "thought he had failed as a man." "He didn't do what men are supposed to do."
His father felt like his entire being was not good enough, and that insecurities seemed to have stayed hidden inside him through all of his endeavors and dreams, until he finally voiced them all at the end of his life.
Tizon, having evolved his own understand of manhood, finally felt that his father had done the best he could. And that was enough.
This story resonated so deeply with me because I also struggle with feelings of inadequacy, of my whole being. I'm not rich enough, educated enough, charismatic enough, good-looking enough, disciplined enough, persistent enough, powerful enough. Man enough.
And sometimes I wonder — with all that I try to do, hope to do, dream to do, even in my failures, anxieties, and shortcomings — if I was, somehow, in the ways that really mattered, enough.
Stay purposeful.
– Nathanael
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