Minor Feelings

I first started reading Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings because the words below the bolded orange title intrigued me: “An Asian American Reckoning.” I’m not sure I was prepared for how accurate this subtitle was. With careful and often uncomfortable detail, Hong explores the feelings many Asian Americans have, using some of her own experiences as examples. 

Hong writes that minor feelings are “built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one's perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed.” Although Hong acknowledges that minor feelings are present in any marginalized group, she focuses primarily on minor feelings in the context of Asian Americans. Towards the beginning of the book, Hong describes an encounter she once had with a man that claimed that Asians were “‘next in line to be white.’” With thoughtful and thought provoking analysis, Hong helps her reader understand how this mentality gives rise to minor feelings. 

In another section, Hong writes about a college friend named Helen, who, although clearly loved by Hong, is frequently obsessive, “paranoid,” depressed, and perhaps most importantly, angry. For a reason I could not understand at first, I began to read Helen as white, despite the fact that I knew she was Asian. I realized after a while that I was uncomfortable with Helen’s anger in relation to her race. With the help of Hong’s commentary on her memories, I began to see that both Hong and I were uneasy with her anger because we viewed it as unsafe. Even from my own experiences, I’ve noted that it’s often white characters in books or movies that are allowed to be this angry, not Asian characters. 

It’s in this way that Minor Feelings is both familiar and uncomfortable at once. Hong’s eloquent yet vibrant voice guides her reader through painful histories and difficult reckonings. Even though it’s a hard book to read and an even harder book to write about, I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. With summer almost here, I encourage anyone who’s interested in taking a break from beach reads to struggle with Minor Feelings. 

- Bonnie