Summer reading: Minor Feelings

Book cover for minor feelingsMinor Feelings
Cathy Park Hong

Like many poets turned essayists, Kathy Park Hong’s attention to language at the granular level makes her writing especially barbed in its critiques of American racism, and rich in observational detail. Her essay collection Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning leads readers through layers of the “minor feelings” of the title, and helps readers to understand the complicated position Asian Americans occupy in a society that so often tokenizes or fails to understand the diversity of Asian American experience and identity. By engaging readers in thinking about the concept of shame and how it works, Hong also becomes a voice helping to liberate a community from feeling that same sense of shame.

KAYA OAKES
Lecturer
College Writing Programs

This book is part of the 2022 Berkeley Summer Reading List. Stay tuned for more weekly posts!