Description

Lees narration of her brilliant memoir is penetrating with insight raw with confessions radiant with fury Her meticulous writing is already stupendous but the unguarded emotions that flow through her candid voice are a remarkable enhancement Her tears of frustration and gratitude will surely prove contagious Booklist starred review

Lees narration is powerful She communicates all of her anger and frustration at the racism she experiences and sees around her She shatters the idea that Asian Americans are the model minority clearly laying out her points while also imbuing her performance with intense emotions that come from living in Americas racist society AudioFile Magazine

This program is read by the author

In the vein of Eloquent Rage and Minor Feelingsa passionate noholdsbarred memoir about the Asian American experience in a nation defined by racial stratification

When Julia Lee was fifteen her hometown went up in smoke during the 1992 Los Angeles riots The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood Julia was taught to be grateful for the privilege afforded to her However the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King following the murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper forced Julia to question her racial identity and complicity She was neither Black nor white So who was she

This question would follow Julia for years to come resurfacing as she traded in her tumultuous childhood for the white upper echelon of elite academia It was only when she began a PhD in English that she found answersnot in the Bronts or Austen as Julia had planned but rather in the brilliant prose of writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison Their works gave Julia the vocabulary and more important the permission to critically examine her own tortured position as an Asian American setting off a powerful journey of racial reckoning atonement and selfdiscovery that has shaped her adult life

With prose by turns scathing and heartwrenching Julia Lee lays bare the complex disorientation and shame that stems from this countrys imposed racial hierarchy to argue that Asian Americans must leverage their liminality for lasting social change alongside Black and brown communities

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt amp Company