A review by baoluong
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

3.0

I’ve always thought the conversation about race in America was incomplete. I’ve always felt in between white and black similar to how our protagonist feels. Not necessarily privileged as a white person but not facing the same racism as a black person. This complicated system both validates and trivializes racism against Asian-Americans. For example, the first anti-migration laws targeted Chinese immigrants. But now you’re telling me I’m a model minority with the status of whiteness? This fictional narrative suspends any progress which is the entire point for maintaining oppression.

Willis wants to be a famous actor using his karate skills as an entry point into Hollywood. When you’ve been type casted, it’s hard for you to get the roles of “lawyer” or “detective”. Instead you’re relegated to “background Asian gangster” or “dragon lady”. Yet, it feels like Willis might be able to break the glass ceiling. If only he can work harder and put his nose to the grind. But after years of broken promises it can be hard to hold onto hope. Until he meets another Asian actress able to disguised her ethnicity into something more ambiguous. It’s love at first sight and while Willis holds envy that he wasn’t born in the right body he learns that no one individual is the problem.

Well, I think this book can be goofy at times. Part of that comes from Willis being perpetually stuck in a childlike wonder. For example, his childhood hero whom he simply calls Big Brother disappears and he never wonders what else a person could want other than to be famous. And while the trope of grown man abandoning responsibilities to pursue visions of grandeur is definitely tired, the manchild trope doesn’t tell Willis to grow up. It makes him see the people in his life as not worthless just because they haven’t achieved their dreams. But rather dreams change and grow with the person.

And while I wouldn’t recommend this book for anyone impatient with stupid men in their lives, and believe me Willis does some pretty stupid things, it shows that people can change. And maybe it takes a beautiful woman to do it or true love or any of that bullshit. Really, what I got out of this book that touched me was the ways in which Asian people are sometimes seen and rarely heard. Our obnoxious protagonist isn’t afraid to complain and maybe that’s what we need to do. Worry less about being a model minority and get angry