Why does the half-Asian, half-white protagonist make us so anxious?
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It only takes a few years.An economic catastrophe brings on the partial collapse of American society.
As the nation recovers, an ascendant right wing blames the crisis on China.
Ngs little mixed-race hero doesnt speak Cantonese and doesnt seem to eat Chinese food or know any Asian people.
The problem is that such a thing may not exist.
There are still only two races in America: Black and white, he declares.
Everyone else is part of a demographic group headed in one direction or the other.
It is not a question of whether Ng or Kang is right.
If she can move freely between worlds, why cant you?
Maybe, if youre lucky, shell teach you.
That is a lot to ask of a child.
Ive always blamed my tendency to vacillate on my mixed ethnicity.
In the process, we may also learn to stop reading mixed Asians like novels.
But the truth is that Lydia never meant to kill herself at all.
The mixed Asian character, while a comparatively new phenomenon, has its own distinct literary roots.
Her mother, deeply worried, compares her to a ghost.
Only her skin and her hair are Chinese.
Inside she is all American made, admits a different mother of her fully Chinese daughter.
Yet at the same time, Lena represents a genuine antecedent to the protagonists of the mixed Asian novel.
I knew I was supposed to be happy about this, Evelyn admits.
Something is missing, but it isnt clear what.
This is easier said than done, of course.
Somehow, my body had known I was not sure about the baby.
My body had acted, unilaterally, she thinks.
Now, to the Mandarin teacher, an ashamed Willa explains, I didnt grow up with my dad.
Parental abandonment is a consistent theme across these books.
This baby of theirs, he had no bones.
The name literally means leech child.
There are two ironies here.
This is poetic but not exactly plausible.
What this means is that racial difference is an inescapable factor in the mixed Asians romantic choices.
At the restaurant with Charlotte, who grew up with their Chinese father, Willa puzzles over their differences.
I didnt feel envy.
It was just that I wanted her to know what it was like for me, she thinks.
I dont have that.
Their insularity feels banal and unwarranted, he complains.
To be clear: Such freedom, if it exists, would be largely subjective.
It is undoubtedly true that race in America is created and maintained through racist violence.
This is why the question Does Asian America exist?
is the wrong one; it is a bloodless logic game masquerading as a political problem.
Here is the better question: Do we want to be Asian Americans?
There is, after all, a reason that people sit together: They dont want to be alone.
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