Counterstories in Cathy Park Hong's Minor Feelings

Abstract

Although the “model minority myth” seems promising in benefiting Asian Americans, its greatest hoax is that it has never guaranteed safety from anti-Asian hate. The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 uncovered the long-existing, historical tensions of anti-Asian hate in America as hate crime rates had spiked to unprecedented levels. They have historically been shaped by discrimination, forced assimilation, and struggle to belong in a society that has continuously treated them as diseased or alien enemies. Asian Americans have been subjected to the simplification of what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie defines as the “single story.” To break from this continued discrimination of autonomy and identity, it is crucial to look at stories that push back against dominant narratives imposed by mainstream society.

In recent years, a surge of minority narratives has countered pre-existing barriers formed by single stories, including Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. Her semi-autobiography includes various essays that work toward describing the Asian American consciousness through Hong’s lived experiences and research. Authentic stories that counter the single stories imposed by mainstream society re-story the canon of what it means to be Asian American. In this paper, I will explore how Asian Americans reclaim identity through “counterstories,” turning what Hong calls “minor feelings” into visualized struggles. By analyzing the critique of single stories, narrative voice, and the experience of purgatorial spaces, I will demonstrate how Minor Feelings works as a counterstory to reclaim Asian American identity.