Tag: Chinese Americans

Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao

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“Every time I struggled to fit into the world around me, I thought if I flew far away enough, like Chang’e, the perfect home would magically appear. But when your roots are tangled up across so many different places, that perfect world may not exist.”
― Laura Gao, Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American

On my graphic memoir quest, I found Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao, the child of Chinese immigrants and an immigrant herself. Messy Roots is her debut graphic memoir. She adds a level of hilarity and insightfulness to her story. Laura was born in Wuhan, China, a place that becomes prominent in the narrative about the Covid-19 pandemic. This graphic memoir is the story of her Wuhan, the one beyond Covid-19, the one that she knows.

Laura grew up in Wuhan in a land surrouded by rice paddies. She and her troublesome cousins rode water buffalo while being watching by her grandparents and managed to get into so much mischief. Her parents left Wuhan for the United States shortly after Laura was born. They moved to attend graduate school, hoping to build a better life for their family. Laura moved to be with her parents when she was four years old. Being thrust into a new and confusing world, Laura was lost. Her teachers and classmates had trouble pronouncing her Chinese name, Yuyang, so despite her mom’s protestations, she changed her name to Laura after seeing then-First Lafe Laura Bush on the news.

Laura moved around to different school frequently growing up, adding to her intense desire to fit in. This desire impacts her decisions regarding hobbies, after-school activities, her college choice, her career, and her contact with her family. When she goes to college, Laura starts to figure out her own identity. After college, she discussses her first job, her relationship with Wuhan today, and how the Covid-19 pandemic affected her as someone from Wuhan, China.

This graphic novel is a necessary read. She has a grounded and insightful take into Wuhan, Covid-19, and the perspective of someone who grew up in China, but is currently living in the United States. Laura also talks about her journey to figuring out her sexual identity, eventually coming out as queer. This coming-of-age story covers an incredible amount of topics. Seeing how all aspects of her life come together to inform her decisions was a delight, given how vulnerable Laura is in her storytelling.

A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo

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“But here’s the important thing when it comes to art. This is what I’ve learned: The art is greater than you and your feelings. You have to serve it. It is not you…Whatever you’re creating may come from within you and your life, but then…it walks away and affects other people you don’t know and have never met. That’s the beauty of it.”
― Malinda Lo, A Scatter of Light

Discovering who you are can be a messy process. Malinda Lo tackles self-identity in A Scatter of Light. Set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage, Lo has created another queer coming-of age story that is bittersweet, romantic, and full of love and loss.

Rural California, 2013. Chinese-American teenager, Aria West, has big summer plans. After high school graduation, she plans on spending her summer with her two best friends in Martha’s Vineyard. After Aria becomes entangled in a scandal at a graduation party, she instead finds herself uninvited to Martha’s Vineyard and exiled to spend the summer with her grandmother, artist Joan West, in California. Aria isn’t sure what to do with herself until she meets her grandmother’s gardener, Steph Nichols. Aria quickly becomes friends with Steph and Steph’s group of friends, all of whom are queer. Aria finds herself second-guessing who she is when she develops a crush on Steph, throwing their friend group into turmoil. That summer in California points Aria down a life path that she didn’t think possible for herself. What she thought was going to be a boring and lost summer ends up becoming a summer of reflection, poetry, and self-discovery that changes her future.

Told from the viewpoint of adult Aria looking back at her eighteen-year-old self, readers relive her transition from leaving her school and childhood behind to her start towards independence. This is a  gloriously messy coming of age story all about how messy self-discovery can be. Lo wrote so beautifully that I felt my own teenage angst echoed through Aria’s actions.

A Scatter of Light is considered the companion novel to Last Night at the Telegraph Club. It’s not necessary for you to read one to understand the other, although A Scatter of Light ties up loose ends and answers questions I had after finishing Last Night at the Telegraph Club.

“…how we were only a small moment in time. In the scale of the universe, we’re just a blip.”
― Malinda Lo, A Scatter of Light

This title is also available in large print as well as an Libby eBook and Libby eAudiobook.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

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We are so excited to announce that See YA is back! See YA is our adult book club with a teen book twist. See why so many teen books are being turned into movies and are taking over the best seller lists. We meet the first Wednesday of the month at Eastern at 6:30pm. Registration is not required. Books are available on a first-come, first-serve basis at the Eastern Avenue library.  Stop by the service desk for more information.

On June 7th, we will be discussing Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo. This book is highly praised! It won the National Book Award, the Stonewall Book Award, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature(it also was the Goodreads Choice Award for Best young Adult Fiction in 2021). This is also a Michael L. Printz honor book, a We Need Diverse Books Walter Dean Myers honor book, and a Los Angeles Times book prize finalist. This book was also a New York Times bestseller. Now that I’ve hyped up the book, let’s get into what it’s about!

Last Night at the Telegraph Club is the story of a high school girl struggling to find her own identity amidst familial and cultural pressures. Set in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the Red Scare in the 1950s, seventeen-year-old Lily Hu feels the push and pull of love and duty every single day. After discovering a book that was about two women who fell in love with each other, Lily starts to examine her feelings more and more. The more she examines, the more Lily realizes that these aren’t new feelings, but she can’t exactly pinpoint when they started. When Lily meets fellow high school student Kathleen Miller, she finds a safe space to explore this different side of her life. As soon as the two set foot in a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club, Lily knew she had an answer to her question: there were women out there who fell in love and it wasn’t weird or abnormal. Outside of the Telegraph Club however, Lily finds resistance. 1954 in America isn’t a safe space for two girls to fall in love. Lily’s family complicates matters, given that they live in Chinatown, the Red Scare is running rampant, and deportation rumors abound. Chinese Americans are subject to more scrutiny, leaving Lily to wonder where she falls and whether love or duty will win.

I don’t want to give away too much, but highly encourage you to check out this title and then come to See YA to discuss it with us on Wednesday June 7th at 6:30pm at our Eastern Avenue Branch. (If you end up liking this title, I highly suggest you also try A Scatter of Light, which is the companion novel to Last Night at the Telegraph Club.)

This title is also available as a Libby eBook, Libby eAudiobook, in large print, and as single book club books.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

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“If this were a novel, he might simply be a poorly written character. But there are no poorly written people. Only ones you don’t yet understand.”
― Jane Pek, The Verifiers

Jane Pek’s debut novel, The Verifiers, follows the life of Claudia Lin, the youngest of three siblings whose Chinese mother wants her to marry a nice Chinese boy already. Her older brother has a high paying job and can’t understand why Claudia doesn’t simply get a job like he has. Her older sister dislikes Claudia as their mother always treats Claudia like the privileged perfect child. While dealing with everyone’s expectations, Claudia finds herself keeping secrets that would shock them. First of all, Claudia prefers girls over boys. Second, Claudia has a job, but she can’t talk about it as it would be unsuitable for what her family thinks she should be doing.

Claudia works at Veracity, a detective agency that operates out of a Manhattan townhouse. This business is rather unconventional. Veracity is hired by their clients to verify people’s online dating personas. Claudia spends her days chasing down liars and cheaters. As a lifelong reader of mystery novels, she sometimes finds herself carried away by the backstories she invents in her head. When one of Claudia’s clients winds up dead, she is told to drop the case. Dead client means no more verifying on her behalf. Claudia can’t let it go. She breaks Veracity’s protocols and decides to investigate what really happened. She doesn’t believe the story she was told, but the more she digs, the more she discovers just how big the web of lies extends. Her client, the circumstances surrounding her death, the myriad dating platforms, her coworkers, and even her own family aren’t being honest with her. Claudia decides to tear down the truths she has been told in order to figure out what she should believe.

This book is also available in the following format: