Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu 266 pages
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu explores racism against Asian American people in script form. Willis Wu talks about the different levels he expects to attain in life (as a tv script) based on Asian characters he sees in television and movies. You start as Asian Guy and move up to Kung Fu guy, but are never a leading man in the script of your life or at work as an actor. This book explores Wu's life and that of his family through the tropes that people expect when they enter an Asian community (in many cases, Chinatown). It also discusses the history of Chinese people in the United States and laws that were written against them. I didn't realize that Chinese Americans were not allowed to own property and no immigrants from Asian countries could be accepted until Lyndon B. Johnson changed the immigration laws for the US in the 1960s.
This book is for our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Book Club at St. Louis Public Library and should provide an interesting discussion. It was the book discussed on PBS News Hour in February 2021.
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