Hi, Toasties. How was your week? Was it GREAT or just okay? Do you need Camille Paglia to inspire you? (I think you do.)

This week was brought to you by Nikki’s French press and an excessively large stockpile of Girl Scout cookies. Happy Friday, everyone. We made it.

Black Woman, Wonder Woman

“I tell myself that the use of charm is a skill, not a crutch.”

Cathy Linh Che is the author of Split (Alice James Books) and the Managing Director at Kundiman. Karissa Chen is the author of Of Birds and Lovers, a chapbook of short fiction, and is the fiction & poetry editor at Hyphen magazine. Ari Laurel is a blog editor for Hyphen, and native Californian, getting her MFA in fiction writing in Montana. Christine Hyung-Oak Lee is at work on a memoir and novel; she is the fiction editor at Kartika Review.

Illustrator: Shing Yin Khor is a cartoonist and sculptor living in Los Angeles, by way of Malacca, Malaysia.

Nicole Soojung Callahan: Hi everyone, thank you so much for being part of this discussion. This is a question whose answer might seem obvious, but I still think it’s a good place for us to begin: what exactly is “Asian American literature”? Some people might hear that term and only be able to come up with one or two writers; others might think of writers who deal with certain types of “Asian themes.” What does the term mean to each of you? What kind of work does it encompass?

Christine Hyung-Oak Lee: When we started Kartika Review, an Asian American lit mag, we had to define this up-front, and we had some discussions about this definition. For the sake of inclusion, we defined Asian American literature as work by Asian & Pacific Islander American writers regardless of subject matter, as well as work by non-APIA writers focusing on Asian American characters/themes/experiences. Kartika also includes West Asians — and we define that as writers of Middle Eastern descent, often excluded from APIA lit. These definitions have worked well for us, as I appreciate the vast well of experiences and creative work.

Personally, I think Asian American literature is defined as anything written by APIA writers. I know there are those who say that the subject matter must also be APIA-centric. But then how do you characterize Chang-rae Lee, who wrote A Gesture Life and Native Speaker alongside Aloft? I mean, Aloft has one Asian American character, but the book isn’t about APIA life.

Karissa Chen: This is a question I agonized over a lot. I grew up in the ’90s, right around when Amy Tan was making her splash, and Asian American studies seemed to be getting more serious and gaining attention. I think that gave me the impression that there was a “certain kind” of Asian American story that was told. By the time I was ready to think about my own role in Asian American literature a decade or so later, I wasn’t sure if I was “allowed” to write anything outside of certain themes (you know the ones I’m talking about — immigration stories, generational differences, identity politics) and still be considered an Asian American writer. In fact, I think I actively resisted having my writing labeled as “Asian American literature” because it connoted a particular type of story I didn’t want to be pigeonholed as writing.

1.

At first it’s probably not obvious that you are their only nonwhite friend. Maybe you can’t remember them hanging out with any people of color except for you, but you don’t know all the people they know. All those tiny thumbnails of white faces, commenting on their political status updates and praising their selfies on Facebook — that’s Facebook, what can it really tell you about someone’s life? Sure, you might go over to your friend’s place for a barbecue or a Super Bowl party and realize that everyone there is white, but that’s still a small sample, ten or twelve people, and at least no one seems visibly weirded out that you’re there, too.

Then, a few years later, you go to their wedding. You’re in a crowded reception hall with the two hundred and fifty people your friend is closest to in the world. You’re the only person of color who made the cut. Maybe this doesn’t actually bother you all that much; maybe you can guess all the reasons already, and some of them seem valid. But as you talk to the people around you, making friendly chitchat at the open bar (how did you meet the bride?), you can’t help but wonder if any of them have noticed what you’ve noticed. (It’s not as if you can ask. There is never a good way to ask white people why their party is so white.)

The funny thing is, you don’t spend a lot of time wondering what it is about your friend’s life that has led to you being, as you so often are, the only nonwhite person in the room. Instead, you ask what it is about you. How did you — of all the brown people in all the towns in all the world — slip past their usual defenses? What is it that made you acceptable?