How to Read Now: What Do Authors Owe Their Readers?

I told Amber recently, half joking, “Forget writing the Asian-American experience. Let me write a white, American, middle-of-nowhere, brain-rot slowburn. It would be so much easier.” And while I will never give up on my Chinese protagonist in her high-fantasy world (I am determined to finish that novel someday), it strikes me as somewhat true that there is this sense of ease and comfort that comes with writing white stories, even myself as a Chinese American teen. 

I was reminded of this moment while reading one of Elaine Castillo’s essays from How to Read Now, titled “Reading Teaches Us Empathy, and Other Fictions.” First, put away the knee-jerk reaction to argue against that. Castillo isn’t saying that reading doesn’t teach us empathy, but that we need to rethink the ways that reading does teach us empathy. Castillo writes: 

“The idea that fiction builds empathy is one of incomplete politics, left hanging by probably good intentions…The problem with this type of reading is that in its practical application, usually readers are encouraged…to read writers of a demographic minority in order to learn things; which is to say, as a supplement for their empathy muscles…The result is that we largely end up going to writers of color to learn the specific—and go to white writers to feel the universal.”

In my founder’s statement, I said that in addition to “giving us a glimpse into the world views of others” (empathy), they also “empower us by bringing awareness to shared experiences, letting us know that we are not alone” (universal). In the current literary canon, we tend to trust white authors to teach us about the “human experience”—universal things, things that we already know, but need help understanding about ourselves—while relegating POC and minority authors to the status of teaching us “empathy”—how to relate to the Other.

In the work of POC authors themselves, I see this manifesting through the characters they choose to tell stories through. Books like Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is an extreme lesson in learning the Other, centering around not only race trauma but the violence of how race intersects with sexuality. On the other hand, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day teaches more “universal” themes, such as living for the future and reconciling one’s outer and inner selves. 

Or, take one of my favorite authors, Yiyun Li. Her book The Vagrants (which to be fair I haven’t read yet) follows three Chinese people, and tells a story that is distinctly Chinese—it cannot be removed from the experience of Chinese people and Chinese Americans. On the other hand, one of my current reads, Must I Go, which follows a white protagonist, isn’t so concerned with portraying the experience of a white woman from Benecia, California. Rather, it focuses on more “universal” themes, such as grief, motherhood, life, and love. 

Of course, these are pretty extreme examples, and there are so many books that contradict this argument. Even some of Yiyun Li’s other books can be argued as focusing more on universal themes while still following Chinese characters. However, when one considers how often the work of minority authors is specifically labeled under the category of “Asian American Literature,” “Foreign Literature,” or anything else simply for having a protagonist who is not white, I think the validity of my argument is made clear. It’s the same as how books centering LGBTQ protagonists are sectioned away into a separate label at the bookstore. 

I know, I know, I KNOW I always end up ragging on Jenny Han for writing these sorts of escapism realities where race isn’t the Big Thing in a character’s life, or at least for the fact that she lacks some of the nuance when it comes to race (changing a character’s race, ignoring race, literally just writing race incorrectly—Indian vs East Asian—etc). But I was listening to one of her interviews regarding The Summer I Turned Pretty and she mentions wanting to stay true to the character rather than make it an “Identity Story”ˆTM. She said something along the lines of “No one’s identity is wholly based on race,” and I definitely agree with that. I think with our current society, we’ve reached the point where we can expect more nuanced stories—even Ken Liu’s “The Paper Menagerie” begins to feel trite after enough generational trauma immigrant stories with unhappy endings. 

The term “casual representation” is most often associated with LGBTQ characters, but I think it applies just as well to racial minority characters. And I don’t think that casual representation is a bad thing. Example? Yiyun Li’s Where Reasons End centers around themes of grief, motherhood, and life. However, the characters are clearly Chinese, referencing poems and translations in a casual, natural way that makes it clear that these aspects are a part of their identity, while still not being the whole of it, while still not being the focal point. 

Another great example that comes to mind is the Netflix movie The Half of It (ugh I love that movie), where the Chinese protagonist’s history as the daughter of immigrants is integral, yet not a main focus. Despite quite possibly being the only immigrant family in this little town, Ellie’s identity is never really a point of conflict necessarily—she never has to “figure herself out” in regards to her race, arguably not even in regards to her sexuality. Rather, the lessons she learns are about making friends, taking risks, and love in all its messy forms (familial, platonic, romantic)—all of which strike me as very universal “teen” issues. 

I still believe that there’s an issue in setting a character’s race so far to the side that they could be read as a white Anglo-Saxon without messing up any part of the book. However, I also believe that there are ways we can write POC characters without it turning into a Lesson On the Other. To end with another Castillo quote:

“The story I’m telling is not just something for you to feel sympathy for, rage against, be educated by: it’s a story about you, too. This work has left a will, and we are all of us named in it: the inheritances therein belong to every reader, every writer, every citizen. So, too, the world we get to make from it.”

Resources:

How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo

“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu