The Loneliest Americans | Jay Caspian Kang | Forward with Andrew Yang - YouTube

The Loneliest Americans | Jay Caspian Kang | Forward with Andrew Yang - YouTube

The Loneliest Americans | Jay Caspian Kang | Forward with Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang Podcast

11,192 views  Premiered Nov 15, 2021  Andrew Yang Podcast - Full Episodes

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In 1965, a new immigration law lifted a century of restrictions against Asian immigration to the United States. Over the next four decades, millions arrived, including Jay Caspian Kang’s family. Kang is the author of The Loneliest Americans, a new book that explores Asian-American identity in a Black and white world.

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제이 카스피안 강(Jay Caspian Kang)과 앤드루 양(Andrew Yang)의 대담 영상 녹취록(‘Forward with Andrew Yang’ 팟캐스트)에 대한 핵심 요약과 심층 비평입니다. 비평 및 요약 본문은 요청하신 원칙에 따라 해라체로 서술하였으며, 특정 국가나 인종적 틀에 갇히지 않은 세계인의 보편적 시각에서 대담의 논점과 그 한계를 분석하였다.

대담 요약 및 비평: <가장 외로운 미국인들>을 둘러싼 제이 카스피안 강과 앤드루 양의 대화

1. 대담 개요 및 맥락

본 대담은 저널리스트이자 작가인 제이 카스피안 강이 자신의 저서 <가장 외로운 미국인들>(The Loneliest Americans) 출간 직후, 전 대선 후보이자 정치인인 앤드루 양의 팟캐스트(‘Forward’)에 출연하여 나눈 대화 기록이다. 두 사람은 모두 1965년 미국 이민법 개정 이후 도미한 고학력 전문직 부모 밑에서 성장한 1.5/2세대 아시아계 남성이자, 주류 엘리트 사회(아이비리그, 언론계, 중앙 정치 무대)에 진입한 배경을 공유한다.

이들의 대화는 흑백 이분법이 지배하는 미국 사회에서 ‘아시안 아메리칸’이라는 인위적 정치 범주가 마주한 구조적 모순, 상류 엘리트 중심의 위선적인 다양성 정치, 코로나19 시기 폭증한 혐오 범죄와 계급적 침묵, 그리고 연대의 가능성과 한계를 둘러싸고 전개된다.

2. 핵심 대담 내용 요약

<‘아시안 아메리칸’ 범주의 허구성과 계급적 분열> 강은 대다수의 아시아계 이민자들은 ‘아시안 아메리칸’이라는 용어 자체를 사용하지 않으며, 자신을 출신국(한국인, 캄보디아인 등)이나 단순히 미국인으로 인식한다고 지적한다. 오늘날 통용되는 아시아계 담론은 명문대를 졸업하고 기업과 언론의 권력을 쥔 소수 엘리트가 독점하고 있으며, 이들이 기업 내 미세차별(microaggressions)이나 문화적 대표성(헐리우드 배역 등)을 논하는 동안 플러싱이나 오클랜드의 배달 노동자, 식당 종업원, 성노동자 등 취약한 노동계급의 생존 문제는 완전히 지워지고 있음을 폭로한다.

<흑백 이분법 구도와 모순된 소외감> 두 사람은 미국 사회의 인종 질서가 철저히 흑백 이분법으로 구성되어 있어, 아시아계가 어느 쪽에도 온전히 속하지 못하는 ‘가장 외로운 존재’가 된다는 점에 깊이 공감한다. 백인 중심 사회로의 동화는 불가능하고, 흑인 커뮤니티와의 무조건적 연대 또한 역사적·정치적 현실 속에서 공허한 구호에 그치기 십상이라는 것이다.

특히 코로나19 시기 발생한 아시아계 노인 대상 폭력 사건을 둘러싸고, 주류 진보 진영과 아시아계 엘리트들이 다인종 연대라는 이념적 순결성을 지키기 위해 가해자의 인종적 복합성이나 실제 피해 이민자들의 목소리를 은폐하고 ‘백인 우월주의’라는 천편일률적 틀로 환원해 버린 위선을 신랄하게 꼬집는다.

<탈출구의 모색: 계급 연대인가, 미국 체제 통합인가> 해법에 있어서 두 대담자는 상반된 태도를 보인다. 앤드루 양은 아시아계가 분열하는 미국 사회를 하나로 묶는 ‘접착제(glue)’나 중재자가 되어 국가 전체의 이익을 도모해야 한다는 온건한 통합론을 제시한다.

반면 강은 좌파적 저항 정치를 지향하며, 엘리트적 자의식을 버리고 실제 노동 현장에서 흑인·히스패닉 노동자들과 계급적 연대를 맺어야 한다고 주장한다. 그러나 강 스스로도 자본주의적 유인 체계와 아시아계 내부의 계급 분열로 인해 이러한 연대가 성사되기 어렵다는 비관적 회의를 숨기지 않는다.

3. 심층 비평: 세계인의 시각에서 본 구조적 통찰과 엘리트주의의 한계

<국민국가 인종주의 라벨의 해체와 그 의의> 특정 국가에 대한 애국심이나 편협한 민족주의를 탈피한 세계 시민적 시각에서 볼 때, 본 대담에서 제이 카스피안 강이 제시하는 비판은 미국이라는 근대 국민국가가 강제한 인종 범주의 허구성을 폭로하는 강력한 미덕을 지닌다.

‘아시안 아메리칸’이라는 기만적 총칭은 광대한 아시아 대륙의 다양한 역사, 문화, 언어를 단일한 경제적·통계적 도구로 축소한다. 강은 이러한 인종적 라벨이 실제로는 기득권층이 시혜적으로 던져준 정치적 자원(다양성 정책, 쿼터제)을 놓고 벌이는 추악한 파이 싸움이자, 노동계급의 계급 모순을 은폐하는 지배 이데올로기로 작동하고 있음을 정확히 짚어낸다.

<엘리트적 냉소와 자가당착의 덫> 그러나 이 대담은 동시에 두 화자 모두가 안고 있는 명백한 한계를 노출한다. 두 사람 모두 ‘노동계급 이민자의 실존’을 말하지만, 대화의 본질은 아이비리그 출신 전문직 2세대 남성들이 겪는 문화적 소외감과 ‘남성성 콤플렉스(masculinity anxiety)’에 상당 부분 매몰되어 있다. 힙합 문화를 모방하거나 스포츠를 통해 백인 남성 사회에 인정받으려 했던 유년기의 치기를 회고하는 대목은, 보편적 인류의 억압 구조라기보다는 미국 교외 중산층 아시아계가 겪는 전형적인 심리적 방황에 가깝다.

더욱이 강은 상류층의 ‘위선적인 다양성 쇼’를 신랄하게 비판하면서도, 대안으로 제시하는 ‘다인종 계급 연대’에 대해서는 실질적인 정치적·제도적 경로를 제시하지 못한 채 자조적인 냉소로 도피한다. 양 역시 보편적 기본소득(UBI)이나 기술 혁신을 말하지만, 인종 갈등의 근본에 자리 잡은 미국 제국주의적 자본주의 구조를 근본적으로 해체하기보다는 미국 시스템의 관리자로 자리매김하려는 온건 개량주의에 머문다.

<세계 시민적 관점에서의 결론> 이 대담의 본질적 가치는 미국 주류 정체성 정치의 허위의식을 솔직하고 거침없이 까발렸다는 점에 있다. 그러나 그 한계 또한 명확하다. 이들이 느끼는 깊은 ‘외로움’은 단순히 백인과 흑인 사이에 낀 소수 인종의 딜레마가 아니다.

근대 국민국가가 규정하는 협소한 국민/인종 정체성에 갇혀, 그 체제가 부과하는 성공 척도(학벌, 부, 지위)를 맹목적으로 추구하다가 맞닥뜨리는 실존적 공허함이다. 국가나 인종이라는 인위적인 울타리를 넘어 전 지구적 자본주의 시스템 속에서 인간 개인의 존엄과 노동의 가치를 보편적으로 사고하지 못하는 한, 미국 엘리트 지식인들의 이러한 고뇌는 자아도취적인 번민과 공허한 냉소의 쳇바퀴를 벗어나기 어렵다.

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제이 캐스피언 강과 앤드루 양의 대담

〈The Loneliest Americans〉: 아시아계 미국인의 정체성과 계급 — 요약 및 평론

자료: The Loneliest Americans | Jay Caspian Kang | Forward with Andrew Yang (Forward Podcast, 2021년 11월 15일). 사용자가 제공한 영상 대담 녹취록 PDF, 37쪽. 아래는 책 본문이 아니라 해당 대담을 요약·비평한 글이다.

1. 대담의 핵심 논제

강이 반복해서 강조하는 문제는 “아시아계 미국인”이라는 이름이 실제 이민자 대다수의 자기이해를 충분히 설명하지 못한다는 것이다. 그는 한국에서 이주한 부모가 스스로를 “아시아계 미국인”보다 한국인 또는 미국인으로 이해했다고 말한다. 서로 다른 출신, 직업, 언어, 이민 시기를 지닌 사람들을 미국의 정치적·미디어적 범주 하나로 묶는 순간 생활세계의 차이가 지워진다. 진행자 앤드루 양 역시 정치적 대표성의 언어와 사람들의 일상이 자주 어긋난다는 문제에 공감한다. 이 대담은 단순한 인종 정체성의 찬반보다 누가 누구를 대표할 권리를 가지는지 묻는다.

2. 저자의 생애와 취재 경험

강은 어린 시절 주로 백인과 흑인이 있는 환경에서 성장하며, 자신의 위치를 미국의 흑백 인종 구도 속에서 이해했다고 회고한다. 힙합, 운동, 남성성은 아시아계 청소년으로서 자신을 표현하는 데 중요했다. 그의 부모는 글쓰기보다 안정적인 진로를 선호했지만, 강은 기자와 작가의 길을 택했다. 언론인으로서 시위 현장과 이민자 지역을 오랫동안 취재했고, 그 과정에서 대학 교육을 받은 아시아계 대표자들의 주장과 노동·생계에 몰두하는 주민들의 현실 사이에 간극이 있다는 생각을 발전시켰다.

3. 아시아계 정체성 정치와 계급

강의 비판 대상은 아시아계 정체성을 갖는 일 자체가 아니다. 고학력·전문직 집단이 교육 기회, 기업 승진, 미디어 재현을 전체 공동체의 최우선 문제로 제시하는 방식이다. 그는 최근 이민자, 낮은 임금을 받는 서비스 노동자, 영어 구사가 어려운 주민, 불안정한 체류자격을 지닌 이민자가 이 논의에서 잘 드러나지 않는다고 본다. 양과 강은 아시아계의 성공 이미지가 집단 내부의 빈곤을 가리는 문제를 논의한다. 차별을 입증하기 위해 공동체를 의사와 엔지니어의 집단처럼 묘사하면, 생계를 걱정하는 사람들의 요구는 뒤로 밀린다.

4. 반아시아계 폭력과 도덕적 언어

코로나19 시기 노년층을 겨냥한 폭행과 2021년 애틀랜타 총격사건은 대담의 중요한 배경이다. 강은 공격을 당한 사람들의 두려움과 분노를 있는 그대로 듣는 것이 우선이라고 주장한다. 모든 사건을 하나의 거대한 이념적 틀로 곧바로 설명하면 피해자 주변 사람들의 복잡한 감정이 말해질 자리를 잃을 수 있다는 것이다. 일부 아시아계 주민들이 진보적 반인종주의 담론에서 소외감을 느끼는 현실도 언급한다. 그러나 강은 그 불만이 다른 인종에 대한 집단적 적개심이나 반동적 정치의 자원이 되는 것 역시 경계한다. 피해를 인정하는 일과 선동에 반대하는 일은 동시에 필요하다.

5. 전문화된 운동과 대표성의 시장

대담에는 현장 활동가와 언론에 등장하는 ‘전문 활동가’ 사이의 차이가 등장한다. 강은 취재 과정에서 시위와 비극을 미디어의 언어로 빠르게 번역하는 사람들이 영향력을 확보하는 모습을 보았다고 설명한다. 앤드루 양도 비영리 활동 중 기부자와 행사, 유명 인사들이 개입하면서 조직의 원래 목적이 흔들리는 상황을 경험했다고 말한다. 두 사람은 운동이 제도화되는 것 자체를 부정하지 않지만, 대표성의 명성과 자원이 지역 공동체의 실질적 요구에서 분리될 수 있다는 위험을 지적한다.

6. 남성성, 세대 차이, 문화를 둘러싼 감정

강은 아시아계 남성이 미국 사회에서 남성성을 의심받는 경험, 그것에 대응해 운동과 힙합에 몰입했던 청소년기를 솔직하게 이야기한다. 온라인에서 나타나는 아시아계 남성의 분노를 이해하려면, 외모·연애·대중문화의 고정관념이 낳은 상처를 무시해서는 안 된다. 그러나 그 상처가 여성을 탓하거나 타인을 공격하는 정당성으로 바뀔 수는 없다. 그는 현재 자녀 세대가 자신과 매우 다른 사회적 환경에서 성장한다는 점도 강조한다. 한 세대의 소외 경험을 영원한 아시아계 본질로 일반화할 수 없다는 뜻이다.

7. 강이 제안하는 정치의 방향

강은 다른 소수자 및 노동계급과 연대하는 방향을 제안한다. 자기 집단에만 고유한 고통을 강조하는 대신 노동조건, 주거, 의료, 이민자 보호와 같은 구체적인 요구를 중심으로 관계를 만들어야 한다는 것이다. 그는 정체성을 완전히 버리자고 하지 않는다. 다만 정체성을 ‘우리만의 불이익’을 증명하는 도구로 사용할 때 생기는 정치적 막다른 길을 경고한다. 양은 이 제안의 실현 가능성을 묻고, 강 역시 폭넓은 연대가 쉽게 이루어지지 않는다는 점을 인정한다. 따라서 대담의 결론은 완성된 프로그램보다 정치적 방향의 제시에 가깝다.

8. 평론: 설득력과 한계

이 대담의 가장 뛰어난 지점은 정체성 정치의 주장과 정체성 정치가 대표한다고 말하는 인구 사이의 불일치를 구체적으로 드러낸다는 데 있다. 특히 ‘아시아계’라는 사회통계적 범주 안에 서로 다른 계급과 이민 경로가 존재한다는 관찰은 사회학적으로 중요하다. 언론인 강의 자기반성과 양의 정치 활동 경험도 논의를 추상적 이론에 머물지 않게 한다. 그러나 정체성 언어와 계급 언어를 너무 선명하게 나누면 실제로는 상호작용하는 차별을 충분히 설명하지 못할 수 있다. 폭력의 인종적 의미를 섣불리 단정하는 태도도 문제지만, 구조적 인종차별을 지나치게 소극적으로 해석해 피해의 역사성을 약화시키는 태도 역시 경계해야 한다. 또한 유권자·노동자·이민자라는 서로 다른 집단의 이해를 실제로 어떻게 조직할 것인지에 대해서는 제안이 다소 원론적이다.

9. 한인 이민사회 연구에 주는 질문

한국계 미국인, 캐나다 한인, 호주 한인 공동체를 비교할 때 이 대담은 세 가지 연구 질문을 제공한다. 첫째, 영어로 발언하는 고학력 2세의 정체성 담론이 1세의 생계와 복지 문제를 얼마나 대표하는가? 둘째, 한인교회·상인회·전문직 단체의 지도층은 이민 노동자와 노년층을 어떻게 포괄하는가? 셋째, 공동체의 연대를 민족적 자부심에서 찾을 것인가, 아니면 주거·돌봄·노동의 공동 이해관계에서 구축할 것인가? 다만 미국의 흑백 인종관계를 호주나 캐나다에 기계적으로 대입해서는 안 된다. 세 나라의 이민제도, 원주민과의 관계, 종교기관의 역할은 구체적으로 비교해야 한다.

종합 평가

이 대담은 아시아계 미국인의 정체성을 없애자는 선언이 아니라, 그것을 누가 어떤 목적을 위해 사용하는지 묻는 비판적 성찰이다. 강의 ‘외로움’은 어느 한 인종집단에 속하지 못한다는 정서뿐 아니라, 자신을 대표한다는 엘리트적 언어 속에서도 자신의 현실을 발견하지 못하는 소외를 뜻한다. 가장 생산적인 결론은 인종차별의 현실을 부정하지 않으면서도 민족 범주 내부의 계급 불평등을 정면으로 다루어야 한다는 것이다. 이런 점에서 이 대담은 이민자 사회의 지도력, 대표성, 연대 가능성을 연구하는 데 가치 있는 자료다.

자료 확인 안내: PDF는 자동생성 대담 자막으로, 일부 이름·표현의 전사가 불완전하다. 따라서 직접 인용을 피하고 확인 가능한 논지 위주로 재구성하였다.

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Transcript

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0:00

the mainstream asian american narrative has nothing to do with the vast majority of asian americans in this country right

0:06

and that the vast majority of asian americans in this country don't even know what the term asian american means right like and

0:13

that includes people like my parents like i don't think my parents have ever used the term asian american they refer to themselves as korean sometimes they

0:20

refer to themselves as american i don't think they've ever said they're korean-american

0:25

and nor an asian-american is some just weird concept to them and so it's

0:30

an interesting book in that it is a book that i think argues quite forcefully i hope against like

0:36

this type of like uh kind of i don't know how to put it but like progressive identity politics right like where i

0:42

think like none of it is really true at the same time while trying to understand what asianness means

0:49

[Music]

0:58

[Music]

1:07

it is my pleasure to welcome to the podcast someone i've admired from afar for a long time since his grant land

1:13

days author journalist his newest book is the loneliest americans jay caspian kang

1:20

welcome jay thank you that's like i think that's the most enthusiastic introduction i've ever

1:26

had in my life that's what thank you that's what we're all about here setting new new heights high water marks

1:33

for enthusiasm but i did become a fan of yours during the grant land days and when grant land shut

1:38

down i was heartbroken i was like this should have better come back

1:44

then it came back but i don't think you were part of the comeback right it got you kind of turned into the ringer and you weren't there is that all right

1:51

yeah i left like uh even before the sort of you know tragic end of

1:56

grantland i think i had been gone for a couple years by then but i was definitely the i imagine that

2:02

you were that what you read was some of the stuff about jeremy lin yes

2:09

i like unless you're unless you're a really big fan of like nba betting or something like that it was probably

2:14

jeremy lynn stuff but yeah i was there through linsanity and um i don't know it was cool like uh you

2:21

know bill bill simmons who was a guy you know the person who was running the site gave us a lot of freedom and

2:27

uh i don't know and wanted us to write about things that we were excited by and so

2:34

i don't know who wasn't excited by insanity i think back on it and like were those the best two weeks of my life

2:39

those are the best two weeks of a lot of our lives you know it wasn't like three sports illustrated covers in a row like the

2:45

whole thing was madness yeah yeah i went to the um i went to the

2:52

game in the garden like uh they were nice enough to fly me out from la to new york and it was when he was

2:58

going up against uh kobe yeah toby yeah and he scored like 38 points

3:04

against kobe and i was like about to cry in the middle of the game you know i was like what is wrong with me you know how many

3:10

of these basketball games have been sitting here like trying to hold back tears i was like i couldn't understand

3:16

it but yeah it was a full emotional experience it was my dream to be the back up point guard for the new york

3:22

knicks growing up and even in my fantasies i couldn't force myself to make it starter

3:33

it was like hey look that's that uh you know that's that internalized right oppression

3:40

it's like i can't be the starter but maybe i could be the backup you and fouchy must have had the same

3:45

well i mean i'm sure a lot of us had that dream but the jeremy out did my dream and

3:51

uh took the city by storm and he actually that led to my breakup with the new york knicks jay i don't know if you

3:56

know this about me but i i grew up in this area from new york city fan and then after

4:02

uh we dumped jeremy linda essentially or you know let him go to the rockets

4:08

uh i was like [ __ ] this [ __ ] i just can't handle this anymore like it was

4:13

like like losing our golden child over money of all things i mean if the knicks did one

4:19

thing right in their uh history it's just [ __ ] spend money on losers you know

4:24

like like jerob james got a fat contract like anyone got a fat contract from the team and then the guy who we all loved

4:32

uh who revived the season and made you know like made my wife like you know excited about basketball for the first

4:38

time in our lives like we let him go i was like i just can't handle this anymore yeah it was like over

4:43

like 14 million dollars or something like that and yeah i remember being mad too because it's like

4:49

like even if you're not doing it from a basketball standpoint you guys are terrible you know so like what's the

4:55

basketball standpoint at least have somebody in here who will draw fans in and make them excited and you know and

5:02

even if he's bad at least it'll make them think about the team you know but um i don't know james dolan is james he's

5:08

the worst is the worst and you know it was hard for me to like mellow after that um you know a lot

5:13

of jeremy lin fans turned on carmelo because he kind of was running the team at the time uh

5:19

so i feel like you were part of history you were the most prominent sports journalist documenting the insanity and

5:25

i have to ask how the heck you got started as a writer in large part because i'm going to confess

5:30

i think you and i have a bunch of things in common but when i was a kid i thought i might want to be a writer or i did want to be a writer

5:36

i showed up to college and i studied english for one semester and [ __ ] hated it it was like you know we read

5:42

mole flanders or some [ __ ] i was like this is the worst thing ever [Laughter]

5:50

like drifted off immediately it was like all right i guess i'll you know take an economics course and

5:55

the rest of it and and then i went to law school where everyone there actually was someone who wanted to be a

6:02

writer at some point and had uh you know didn't have the guts to pursue it for the most part and they just went to law

6:07

school and you know because it seemed more practical um so so that that was a bit of my arc

6:14

and so like i admire the heck out of people that actually managed to make a career out of something that so many people think about particularly if

6:21

you're asian because we have all these pressures to do something eminently practical right uh well you know i think

6:27

it's a strange story in that you know i think my mother uh

6:32

i don't know what you know i've talked to her about it but i she always wanted to be a writer but she immigrated to the

6:37

united states when she was you know in her 20s and so it's hard to become a

6:43

uh writer when you're um you know you're in a country that you're not speaking your native language

6:50

anymore and so um she did a lot of she sort of i think placed a lot of that stuff on me and my

6:57

sister when we were little kids and you know it's almost like a tiger mom thing where she would

7:02

make us write a page a day every single day i think starting when we're like four and a half or five years old i

7:09

still have all these books and she would like give us these notebooks and we'd have to write and read every single day

7:14

and i think that basically went until i was 16 years old and so i don't know i had sort of this tiger

7:20

mom training on how to be a fighter and i will just say that all that practice sort of made things easier but um

7:27

yeah that's sort of where it got started and i don't know i think luckily i i really liked it you know if i had

7:33

resisted it i think i wouldn't have i wouldn't have done it as a career but i think the start of it isn't that good i just did the math man if you wrote a

7:39

page a day uh for 12 years i mean you're like you know four or five thousand pages of i'm sure utter nonsense

7:49

yeah i go back it's it's ridiculous it's like so the only you know it's like oh we had this

7:54

for dinner you know and this happened at school and it's just like totally dispassionate except the

8:01

days when i like would have a little league game or something like that and then i would fill up like several pages with explanations i would make box

8:07

scores and stuff like that but um but yeah most of it is just nonsense right

8:12

like it's just like uh i played with so rob you know and rob

8:18

and i played nintendo and then his mom told us to stop and then i came home at a dinner and just strung out over

8:26

so you get into journalism uh grant land new york times you wind up

8:32

doing a beat for vice around

8:39

civil rights protest police brutality specifically right uh i mean what that was like a

8:44

pretty big transition i remember in your book you talk about how uh you were making a transition to video

8:50

or tv and they were like don't worry it's just like writing uh just be a more animated

8:55

version of yourself [Laughter] yeah that was weird i mean

9:01

yeah i i went i mean i was did sort of i spent my 20s basically not publishing

9:06

anything i wanted to be a novelist and things were really not working out so i mostly

9:12

played poker and surfed and taught english in high school for like eight years just getting rejection after

9:18

rejection and then you know a lot of stuff happened at once i got very lucky and then i ended up at grayland

9:25

but um yeah the television part of it was after i had sort of been like i don't know if i want to really write anymore and i did

9:32

a little bit of work in advertising and then someone was starting a show on hbo you

9:37

know a vice show on hbo about the news and they asked me if i wanted to audition for being like a television

9:42

correspondent and i was like i was like are you sure it really doesn't make any sense

9:49

someone who could be on television just like like mostly like you know like lie down and you know type and type into my phone

9:56

i was like i'm not like an animated person you know but um they seem pretty committed and they seem

10:01

pretty convinced that i would be good at it now i i think that they were wrong you know like i think i was writing

10:06

about it but you know i don't know i really liked sort of being a tv correspondent just because the

10:12

the days were uh interesting right like you're working on a team i mean you've done some of this before right like but

10:18

like for us it was just like we would we would fly to like st louis or we would fly to

10:24

we'd fly to minneapolis or we'd fly like grand rapids michigan or something like that we'd stay in like you know like a

10:29

double tree and then we would it felt like i was part of a team which was much less sort of isolating than being a

10:36

writer and i enjoyed that part of it like i loved working with my colleagues and stuff i just didn't really like being on camera well this made it into

10:42

your book and again it's an extraordinary book the loneliest americans this is what it looks like but but i was fascinated by your description

10:50

of what it's like to report on the protests that followed for example

10:56

uh shooting of a black person in one of these communities and so you would show

11:02

up uh and it did sound very very um action-packed certainly i'm sure

11:09

there was like a lot of teamwork involved because you'd be with a camera person and a producer

11:15

you experienced getting tear gassed multiple times and one of the things that you say in

11:20

your book that really it captured me was you talk about there's

11:26

like a pattern to the way that you would cover these stories where you would have a quote from a law

11:32

enforcement figure or some kind of official a quote from an activist and then ideally a quote from

11:40

the victim's family uh and that your assignment in many cases was to try and track these people down as quickly as

11:46

possible right right i mean you know it's part of the sort of unsavory part about being a

11:52

reporter right which is that sometimes you have to talk to people who don't want to talk to you sometimes you have

11:58

to sort of parse through things that are being said to you that you know are lies right um and sometimes you have to

12:05

uh you know deal with people who have just under gone through the worst tragedy sort of unthinkable tragedy

12:12

uh that that you can't even really conceptualize right in your head um you know and so

12:17

uh and yet like it's so rote like you have to do those steps or else you're not

12:23

doing your job i actually think those steps are good like that's what reporters should do that's what the public deserves to know

12:29

and so um you try and fine-tune that a bit right like you try and figure out what

12:34

strategies work i don't know how many of these things i i think i probably between you know writing for the new

12:40

york times and and then this job at feis i don't know maybe i went to 50 um

12:47

separate protests maybe more you know and uh suspected expected to have a story for every single one of

12:53

them and uh you know you try not to get cynical about you try not to get burned out

12:58

about it and so basically most of your head is spent trying to like fine-tune your process and trying to do this right

13:05

and um yeah you gotta sort of figure out when activists are telling you the truth when

13:10

the police are telling you the truth you know that's much more important you have to figure out what activists actually

13:15

know things which ones don't right like there's a lot of wild goose chase type of stuff where someone will promise that they can help

13:22

you talk to axe person right but that person is not really like doesn't actually know

13:28

um and so yeah you gotta you just like slowly learn the how these things are

13:33

very similar in different cities and then and then it starts to feel a bit repetitive right like you um

13:39

you go and then you're trying to make sense of this tragedy and then at the same time you know

13:44

you're just thinking wow this is just like this is just like charlotte you know like this is just like

13:50

baton rouge and uh i don't know it both reinforces the violence that's happening

13:57

uh and uh and also just how many these communities are getting traumatized by this violence

14:10

[Music]

14:16

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15:34

your book had a lot of things that i'd never seen before and one of it one of the things you wrote up

15:40

about attending these protests is you talked about how uh you didn't like a lot of activists

15:47

because it seemed like they were forced into roles and and it kind of made them seem a bit like performers

15:53

to you which was fascinating to me and that there's like a speaking circuit that follows and then some people get

15:59

absorbed into the speaking circuit but then others don't and then the ones that don't get absorbed uh feel kind of left

16:05

out and embittered uh and then the ones that do uh continue to make a living essentially because it there's

16:12

there is like an ecosystem uh to activism and recently there was this

16:17

brouhaha you probably saw where there was going to be a reality tv show called the activist and then people just

16:22

shouted it down yeah what was that about yeah that seemed like the worst idea

16:28

it clearly seemed like the worst idea of all time so those are people who don't know what i'm talking about there was a reality tv show where there's going to

16:34

be an activism competition uh and whoever one got to like go to davos or something or like present it

16:42

right it was literally they went to davos i think yeah yeah but but yours was the first account where it actually

16:49

talked about how various activists uh would would try to

16:55

uh make the case in different ways and show up the protests and then some of them wound up being professionalized and

17:01

others didn't yeah it's interesting i mean i want to make a distinction here which is that the reason why i kept

17:06

going these protests wasn't because it was just my job i mean i could have asked to be on a different beat you know

17:11

or i could have just not done this job the reason i went was because i've always been very moved by the thought of

17:17

people walking out of their houses just normal citizens walking out and engaging in in

17:23

an active unified descent you know i think it's the most important thing that americans can do

17:29

and you know i come i was born in korea korea is a country that protests all the time right it's like the one thing that

17:35

koreans do right i think that we're sort of known more for other things at this point but like you know the sort of the

17:41

unifying experience of people my parents age for example in korea is that they just went to a lot of protests and so

17:47

there's two sides of me that that sort of appreciate this and um but yeah there are like when trying to

17:53

decipher this like as a reporter the people who are going to appoint themselves the spokespeople are sometimes not the people who have just

17:59

walked out of their houses right who have sort of been fed up you know this is like the fifth time sixth time tenth time they've seen

18:05

someone shot by the police in in this neighborhood over the years and they're they're just fed up right like i think

18:10

those people um some of those people do end up being leaders right some of those people do end up taking leadership roles and i

18:17

think that like when that happens generally that it's fine but there also is a sort of professional class of

18:23

activists and i not i don't i think that say that i don't like them as a little bit too strong but it's difficult to

18:29

interview them sometimes right because they just have talking points and they sort of blow through them

18:35

and in the end you don't have anything that's particularly relevant to the story at hand right it

18:40

is it is just a lot of sort of uh stuff that almost feels abstract when

18:45

you talk to the when you talk to them and so um yeah i wouldn't say that that it's a

18:50

dislike of those people i think some of those people do end up doing good things but certainly the the class of activists

18:56

that you were talking about right like the the sort of professionalized media savvy ones

19:02

uh are are present and honestly at the beginning of my career when i first

19:07

started uh reporting on this like i wasn't really like i i made some mistakes where

19:12

i wasn't really thoughtful about that you know where um where maybe i like talked to some people

19:19

who i thought were who ended up you know sort of being in that type of class but at the same time i

19:26

think about it now and i just like well but when i met them they weren't you know and so it's it's a process that

19:32

sort of happens and you know some people think that they can do more good if they have a bigger platform and then some

19:38

people stay rooted in the community and sometimes that's great and we all want you know like i think that's the option

19:43

that people would instinctively say is better but at the same time you know like it's it's important to have a big platform and say some things too so i i

19:50

don't i feel somewhat ambivalent about it right like i just think but i don't think that the i don't think that the phenomenon that you're describing is is

19:57

not true it's really tough jay because i you know i i've been a public figure i've been

20:03

uh somewhere trying to make things happen and when i was running my nonprofit that i'd founded

20:10

the organization demanded that i go to conferences where people had money and i get in a panel and i try and you know be

20:16

in front of everyone and talk up the mission and whatnot uh and it it seemed

20:22

like the resources were pulling me in one direction and then the work however you define it was pulling me in the

20:27

other direction um but i'm a goal-oriented uh math guy and so i was like all right let's go get

20:34

the resources like the best thing i can do and so like i feel really bad for folks

20:40

because that that's the tug of war that they get pulled in oftentimes uh you know all these kind of

20:46

glitzy seeming opportunities come up you're like oh if i go there then i'll be around people who can really help

20:52

move my organization forward and then you go there and i gotta say it is the worst feeling because the the rich

20:57

people there it's not like they run around just like doling out checks to folks

21:03

right they make they make you they make you dance a little bit right yeah there's this whole kabuki elementary and

21:09

they're just like oh you know really impressed with your work let's get together call my people and then you like call their people and sometimes

21:15

they have an officer you know it's like it is like this entire uh ecosystem really a marketplace

21:21

i mean that's one of the problems in american life is that at this point there is a marketplace for activism and you know that's why one

21:28

reason why that reality tv show cracked me up so much i mean you know then people found it like super objectionable

21:37

yeah it did seem to be rooted in some sort of id you know where it's like okay why

21:43

don't we just go full bore here it was it was dark like i mean maybe something but but i've been very dark

21:49

you know in some ways myself i mean as a non-profit leader you're you're in some ways a professional activist um so this

21:55

book makes a lot of very very big arguments and points it does in such an unflinching way that

22:00

i've never seen before what drove you to write this book what was the process

22:06

you'd written a novel before that hammered away at some of the same themes but this is a book of nonfiction

22:13

um yeah like what was your did you have like a clear vision uh or

22:19

uh mission and what was the process like putting this book together because you know it's a real it's a really

22:25

impressive piece of work it must have taken you quite some time yeah it took me about four to five years

22:32

to write um you know i took a couple breaks in there but yeah i think it was it was a long

22:37

time longer than i expected um i you know like i have been writing

22:42

about asian issues for about a decade right or like uh and you know like you said it started

22:47

with sports right it searched jeremy lin uh the first piece i think i ever published anywhere i published for free

22:54

and it was about jeremy lin when he was at harvard and like the rapper jyn the mc do you remember that guy from

23:00

freestyle from of course mcg man i'm friends with it and i actually went and saw do you know mcginn did uh yang for new

23:07

york rap you must have seen that [ __ ] right now that's right oh yeah yeah i remember and he did a bunch of

23:13

presidential stuff for me too so anyone can google uh andrew yang mcginn all this stuff comes up but i was hip to

23:20

jeremy lin when he was still in college at harvard i went and saw a college game with his so that that just goes to show

23:26

did you did you watch the freestyle friday stuff when it happened with no no i just heard you know that the chinese

23:33

rapper came and you know went undefeated and got a good deal and all the rest of it and you know his first song came out

23:40

was i think speak chinese it's fake chinese yeah yeah yeah like y

23:45

clef produced it um yeah i so i had started there and i i didn't really know what i was going to

23:51

do as a writer and honestly like at the time i wasn't particularly interested in writing about identity or anything like

23:57

that like well i just want to intercede man a book about identity from someone who didn't want to write about identity

24:03

which is one reason why i really enjoyed it but continued yeah well i knew and uh so i had a

24:10

couple ideas when i started writing it the first was that i had been writing about this population and don't been doing a lot of

24:17

uh reporting in immigrant neighborhoods at the time right and so i realized that there was this big disconnect between

24:23

the way that people like me right or even you right like who are you and i have a lot of common background children

24:28

sure man let me in for sure right right so like sort of first uh people who were

24:34

raised in the united states uh sort of in places that were mostly white or were

24:40

mostly white and black right in my case um and that sort of had to form this identity almost by themselves like in

24:46

isolation and that you know one of the things that you learn is that you learn how to sort of deal with rich white people right you

24:52

learn how to talk their talk you learn how to sort of ingratiate yourself into their circles and those people end up

24:57

being and then you end up going to an elite school and then you sort of graduate and then you become one of the people who is able to sort of occupy a

25:04

position of messaging and power within that community now the reality of it is that you may have absolutely no

25:10

connection with that community at all but just because you look like them you become their spokespeople right and so

25:17

um while reporting in all these immigrant communities and also you know all my cousins sort of grew up in these

25:23

enclaves too so i was very close with them i always knew what they were hip to so in the end i was just like there's such

25:29

a big disconnect between these two right like the mainstream asian american narrative has nothing to do with the

25:36

vast majority of asian americans in this country right and that the vast majority of asian americans in

25:41

this country don't even know what the term asian american means right like and that includes people like my parents

25:46

like i don't think my parents have ever used the term asian american they refer to themselves as korean sometimes they

25:52

refer to themselves as american i don't think they've ever said they're korean-american

25:57

and nor and asian-american is some just weird concept to them right so

26:02

um and my parents are pretty assimilated right like they're not they're not people who uh you know they speak

26:08

english they they understand the concept of asian american but um it's not something that's real to them and so

26:13

it's an interesting book in that it is a book that i think argues quite forcefully i hope against like

26:20

this type of like uh kind of i don't know how to put it but like progressive identity politics right like where i

26:26

think like none of it is really true um at the same time while trying to understand what asian-ness means right

26:32

like what does it mean because it certainly is a category right like you and i are both asian um no one would

26:38

deny that neither of us would deny it but i don't know a lot of times i think that like you and i i would imagine from

26:44

you know this the first time we've spoken but i certainly have followed your career we know some people in common it's just like you know i feel

26:51

very ambivalent about the about the identity i i i assume you do too well

26:56

you put it in such simple terms that uh i think most people can understand and this is the quote is

27:02

we know we don't have it as bad as you uh i.e black people but we also aren't

27:08

white and we need a way to talk about it

27:13

yeah right right that's the that's sort of the realization i think a lot of asian

27:19

people come to usually in college right i think that's when it sort of happens for a lot of people but um

27:25

or maybe in your early 20s if you don't go to college but you sort of have this understanding that like you're trying to

27:31

place yourself in the black white binary in america right and um i don't think many asian people like

27:37

actually want to become white you know where they're like oh i wish i had blonde hair and blue eyes and stuff

27:43

um and so you're just like okay i'm not white you know and uh but like i i don't

27:50

i understand that my life in a lot of ways is easier than it would be for if i was black and so i think that's

27:55

sort of the contradiction or the you know like sort of the two polls that people fight against their you know

28:01

their whole lives really yeah you talk about how uh america has a black white binary race

28:07

construction which i think a lot of people recognize and that uh asian americans get torn

28:13

between either associating with white liberals uh or

28:18

as black people uh and the oppressed minority um but aren't really accepted

28:24

by either group truly uh and that's the premise for the title

28:31

of your book the loneliest americans is like look we don't belong in either camp uh and trying to belong in either camp

28:38

is kind of a fail [Laughter] so yeah yeah that's the general idea and

28:44

you know like one of the things that my own life was basically spent uh because i grew up mostly in north

28:50

carolina and north carolina has a lot of white people it has a lot of black people right and so uh my childhood was

28:58

spent with a lot of white kids a lot of black kids and um for most of my childhood i identified

29:04

much more with black kids uh at schools that i went to to the point where like when i was i saw

29:10

a photo of you when you were in high school right like with the with the long hair and everything like

29:15

that right like so i had a version of that where i was wearing like timberlands and you know like wearing like mark echo hoodies and just only

29:22

listening to rap right and so and i still think there's part of me that that is grounded in that type of

29:28

identification but when you think about it right like it was like uh

29:33

you know like it was an isolated identification right i had friends who were black but i wasn't

29:39

like it wasn't like i had fully inhabited that or knew of the culture very well you know i was doing the type

29:44

of thing that young people often do it's just type of appropriation oh jay i just want to interject because like what happened

29:50

with me growing up in a predominantly white area with very few black people or asian people

29:55

but if you're a a boy uh you just want to be respected as

30:02

like a male and i think that black culture and hip-hop um was the exemplar of essentially

30:10

non-white masculinity and so if you're an asian kid like one way you could be

30:16

kind of masculine is to be hard and listen to a rap and hip-hop and you know

30:21

like uh wear the gear and stuff like that at least that was my uh

30:27

interpretation of it where i also listened to a lot of rap and hip-hop and the rest of it because you know i i just

30:32

wanted to be tough like i felt like my masculinity was always in question what would you listen to well you know

30:38

i'm a little bit older so this is like when public enemy first came out and stuff like that uh then right right you

30:43

know iced tea right so it was that but i also listened to um

30:51

uh like grunge and alternative and that stuff because that that was you know pretty dumb i guess it was the 90s so

30:57

those were like the two major uh strains it was like the tupac biggie hip-hop strain and then

31:04

there was like the nirvana pearl jam um and you saw my high school photos you saw that you know i definitely listened

31:10

to some grunge the alternative thing yeah but but i had a lot of anger

31:17

uh and so you know the anger if you were non-white and you wanted to be tough like it it meant uh essentially

31:25

in my mind blackness at the time because there was certainly no depiction of like asian-american

31:30

masculinity to be had right right right it's interesting kids now have it i guess

31:37

right but in a way that feels so foreign to me i want you know does it feel foreign to you like i guess i i

31:42

sometimes think about it and i see like uh you know i see these tick tocks and it's like these like white kids in indiana

31:48

and they're trying to learn how to speak korean because they're in love with like a bts member you know and i was just

31:53

like what is that like you know what would have been like for me in high school if like a bunch of

31:59

white kids are trying to learn how to speak korean and we're like you know be like oh my god are you korean that's so cool you know so i think that for kids

32:06

today it's like uh it might be a little bit different but for me it was like it's just like mind-blowing to even

32:12

think about that why would you learn how to speak korean i'll tell you about one of the the

32:17

funnest times on the presidential trail and this is fine it's a day off for me i was back in new york city's day off i was with my

32:23

wife and her cousin and then he just looks up and randomly and says rich brian is in town he's uh

32:30

doing a concert you know rich bryan the the rapper right yeah yeah and so i was like oh i'm friendly

32:35

with him on twitter um and then he was like do you want to try and go by the concert and i was like

32:41

sure so then like i ping rich and i'm just like hey uh you know i'm in town uh he's like yeah come on by so i end up

32:48

going to the concert with my wife and uh her cousin and my brother-in-law and we

32:54

go backstage and then we arrange it with rich brian where i was going to go on stage like a

33:00

surprise and just like announce myself and you know just shoot the [ __ ] and i got so

33:05

nervous because i'm like do they know what the [ __ ] i am

33:12

what's going on and so um so i was backstage and i came out and then happily the crowd was really

33:18

excited to see me and like you know the the rest of it um but there it was really awesome to see frankly like you

33:25

know an asian rapper like in this case like thousands of uh

33:31

hip-hop fans who were there who were almost exclusively asian i'd say and whatnot but of course none of that

33:37

stuff existed when you and i are growing up yeah none of it i mean i guess like uh

33:43

you know um it was hard and so yeah you don't you didn't really have that so yeah i agree

33:49

with you i think that it was a bit of the idea of trying to find some form of masculinity that made sense right where

33:55

you just don't want to be thought of as a dork right um and that was basically it yes that

34:01

was really the the thing to avoid it's like don't don't be the asian nerd so anything to avoid that any

34:07

thing you could latch on to so in my case one of the things too i felt pressure around was sports did that

34:14

happen to you in north carolina uh until middle school or so i was pretty

34:19

good at sports and then it i hit some sort of cliff where i was suddenly very bad i was no longer good

34:26

at them and so i think that during my formative years i played a lot of sports and i do think that that helped quite a

34:31

bit right and then by the time i was in ninth grade or something like that it wouldn't have mattered so much and then

34:37

i just became like a kind of like stoner guy on the um you know on the debate

34:43

team i don't i don't even know what it was but it was just like that was sort of my

34:49

thing you know um and uh who listened to a lot of rap um and that

34:54

was basically it but yeah i do think there are some you know it's interesting because there's like these two there's like there weren't that many asian kids

35:00

at my high school right like maybe five in my grade and two of them were super jocks like one of them ended up playing

35:06

soccer at carolina you know like starting when he was a fresh so he was like one of the best high school soccer

35:11

players in the country and uh he was like this five foot six japanese guy and then there was my friend allen who lived

35:18

down the street from me who was like you know more sort of nerdy and and sort of your stereotypical nerd guy and so yeah

35:24

it was uh you know you you always kind of look around when you're in those situations you're like what's the other asian

35:29

dude's doing right and it's like also this form of betrayal that you feel terrible about when you're doing it you

35:35

know because you're just like why do i have to do this why am i doing this what if i just didn't do this but then it's hard to stop doing that right and so

35:41

that yeah i think uh i don't know uh i've had to ask you this actually like do you think that like i mean like

35:47

you and i are similar in the same age grew up in similar situations i think that we have similar sort of past right

35:54

uh do you think like you have kids like do you think your kids are gonna like i i i almost feel

36:00

like my kid is not gonna it's like growing up in different different almost at least

36:05

for me right like i so i look at the way my kids are growing up uh and it's totally night and

36:11

day to the way i grew up my brother grew up because my my parents came in they were immigrants they didn't know anything and so you know we just like

36:18

kind of showed up clueless uh to the extent that we knew about ourselves as asians it was like just

36:25

getting picked on and bullied all the time by various kids and then you know like just feeling like your

36:30

place in the country is always being questioned uh your masculinity is always being questioned my kids don't seem to get any

36:36

of that like you know they're just coming up there uh i i joke and just talk about how soft my kids are my kids

36:42

are so soft and i know you have a girl so in your case you know maybe it's a slightly different um

36:50

like uh calculation but i have a joke because when i was running for president i talk about how

36:55

we're automating away the jobs and it's making us insane and the rest of it and so i'd show a picture of my kids and be like my kids are way too soft to survive

37:03

the mad max apocalypse that's coming we got to keep our [ __ ] together for their sake and like there's a

37:09

picture of my boys that they just do look really really uh very sheltered um so uh it sometimes

37:16

upsets me jay but then i'm just like yeah you know it's a different generation it's a different time uh you know like

37:23

they're just uh you know comparing their childhood to mine it really is very different my wife and i have a joke but

37:28

from before where we would pretend to be uh laundromat owners who didn't speak english or whatever and then and then

37:34

just like you know or like have half of it raised or else then like pop out with

37:40

their 18 and be like hey guess what it turns out yeah

37:45

yeah yeah no i think about it too because it's just like you think like all right you know i went

37:51

through all this stuff and man i was really you know it sort of it was horrible but that's why i'm so tough

37:57

today you know and then i think and then i just like so is what i'm saying is that i hope that my daughter goes

38:03

through like long periods of racist bullying you know it's like of course not you know but you do have i think

38:08

that's like the thing between people like us who went through that position and now

38:14

have children who are probably not going to go through that just because the country is different or the circumstances in which we raise our

38:19

families are different you know because you know like my kids are growing up in manhattan and going um to schools and

38:25

like that's a different vibe than you know the upstate new york um school i grew up in uh and the rest of it it is

38:31

a different time but you know we end up in these enclaves too in our own way uh you know because our circumstances are

38:37

different than our parents and we do different kinds of work [Music]

38:47

[Music]

38:53

people think i'm a very very upbeat guy which i appreciate a great deal but we all struggle we all get down in the

38:59

dumps and when you are down and facing some issues that you want to talk to

39:04

someone about the fact is your friends and family don't really want to hear about your stuff

39:10

they'll hear about it once and then after that i'll be like oh you know get someone else which

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too [Music]

40:15

i loved the book because i felt like you just cut to the core of a lot of things around identity and there's like this

40:21

predominant racial set of narratives that you kind of questioned or poked holes in

40:27

and i thought the the maybe like the biggest example of that is when you talked about

40:33

the uh the treatment of the beatings of asian elders during covid

40:39

uh and and how uh there were some uh narratives that

40:45

the press just completely would not touch um and then you put them in these terms and i'm gonna read at least one of them

40:52

it says white liberals talk about ending racism but they don't mean us

40:58

in fact they will actually deny us justice to protect black assailants with the observation that a

41:05

significant number maybe even uh preponderance of the attacks on asian elders were by

41:13

african americans in oakland and new york city and other things and then you write if the rules were

41:18

reversed and asian men were randomly attacking and even killing old black people there would be nationwide

41:24

protests i had never seen that put in those terms uh and i i frankly am grateful that you

41:32

did it or that someone did it because there was such like a disconnect where

41:39

uh if there was an issue of um violence against asians

41:47

there there was a lack of coverage or discussion about um like the the nature of the

41:54

uh or the identity of some of the people that were doing the attacking yeah i mean i i would say like you know

42:01

in that section i was trying to encapsulate what a lot of the thoughts of asian people at the time were right and

42:08

so i'm not necessarily speaking as myself there right but i'm trying to say this is what people were thinking right

42:14

like like these are the thoughts that peop that people especially in immigrant enclaves like right people who are

42:20

recent immigrants right like when they try and understand the racial calculus in this country this is just something

42:26

that they come up across right like they see these videos and they go and they say okay well it seems like uh you know

42:32

the last three videos have been black assailants right and um

42:37

like where's the outrage right and then they think about like what they what they went uh sort of the

42:43

the the summer before right and they think about the protests around george floyd and they just think

42:50

why are these two things not equal right like why why why does a country not care about us

42:55

in the same sort of way and like what are where what are our leaders our supposed leaders saying right now i

43:02

don't think that necessarily these are productive thoughts to have in fact i would say many of them are unproductive

43:07

right they're not contextualized in american history in some ways uh and i

43:12

also think that like uh you know there is some there is like a danger in expressing

43:19

them publicly right like i think that like it it can be destructive right like it's not something that everyone doesn't

43:24

need to sort of be this gigantic truth teller the truth is going to end up causing a lot of division

43:30

but now were people having those thoughts though oh absolutely you know of course

43:35

they were having those thoughts because that's just the human sort of nature in terms of like well why aren't things

43:40

fair for me why am i not getting the same sort of treatment and yeah i think that that was a very predominant thought

43:47

at the time right and i think it's still a predominant thought i think it affects politics right and i think it affects

43:53

the way in which people think about the democratic party and progresses and in particular right like they think well

43:59

you know these are supposed to be the anti-racist people you know like why are they not protecting us and you start to

44:04

see messaging in asian communities you start to see messaging online that is essentially just saying like hey you

44:11

know these people don't actually have our backs right like they're trying to they're trying to take away our test

44:16

schools right they're trying to keep us out of harvard uh they don't care when we're getting beat up in the streets because they don't want to criticize

44:22

other minorities you know that like and like i don't know that is a very powerful message right

44:29

it's a powerful message because i think that uh that it has enough it sort of goes right

44:35

into the sort of lizard brain of a lot of asian people right where they're having these thoughts that they don't want to admit that they're having and it

44:42

says like it's okay to have these thoughts this is the truth and like i think that from that you can

44:47

create like a very powerful reactionary type of politics that frankly terrifies me you

44:52

know like i don't think that we should base our uh politics on grievances and anger right

44:59

but i i i just see it happening right now and um you know you can see it in the polls after virginia you can see it

45:04

in the polls in in new york uh you know you can see it almost everywhere right now that there's some

45:10

swing coming well i'm certainly with you like i also want to get away from people uh

45:15

grinding axes or having these grievances and division uh you know i certainly i hate trying to

45:21

blame um large groups of people for like a particular action especially along the

45:28

lines of race you know it's like like if someone does something it's like that that's not like all people of that

45:33

race you know it's like uh and uh in terms of this the the

45:39

violence against asian elders like i made the case look half of this is being perpetrated documented by people who are

45:45

struggling with mental illness so let's focus on getting people more services uh that's something that we should all be

45:51

able to get behind um i i found myself frustrated that we were all trying to make it seem like

45:57

if we had like social media campaigns saying you know asians are people and like racism is bad like that'll do the

46:03

trick and i was like like this is you know like it's not like someone's gonna see that campaign and be like oh

46:09

like that now you know like now my desire to be an asian grandma it's gone

46:14

you know it's like it's just someone who is really really uh in a very bad way

46:19

themselves and then and they're unable to check what's like a nasty dangerous

46:24

sometimes even violent impulse um so i i'm with you on trying to to go

46:29

another direction and i think that one of the goals to try and get there would be just being able to accept a degree of

46:36

complexity it's like you have these press driven narratives that are always uh to your your major point just so

46:42

binary in nature it's just like this is the narrative we're going with and then anything that that doesn't fit that

46:48

narrative we're going to this kind of hand wave away but if it's in that narrative then we're

46:53

just going to go full bore oh yeah yeah i mean that's like you know like that's basically just been the crisis of uh

47:00

my intellectual life for the past two years is just like just frustration with that type of thinking right which is

47:05

just that if it doesn't if you if it's not one way then you must be on the other side right and so like when you're

47:12

assessing the attacks on on old asian people right like uh there was at the

47:17

beginning there's this thing there's like these are about white supremacy right like this is all white supremacy and she's like i don't know if that

47:23

makes sense to me you know it certainly doesn't make sense to the people who are being attacked and in those communities like if you told them

47:30

they're like what's white supremacy have to do with this also like maybe they would even say what's white supremacy right like these are immigrant

47:35

communities and um and they're experiencing it in a very different way and so then if you try and

47:42

describe the way through reporting and talking to these people like the way that they are feeling right and saying

47:47

that look this is a complex thing you know some of it might make you very uncomfortable you might dislike a lot of

47:53

these people and think that they're racist oh that's fine right but we shouldn't describe it with the as it's something it's not just because

48:00

it makes you know a certain type of liberal person comfortable right because that's all that is right in the end it's

48:05

like it's a lot of sort of elite asians sort of getting together and just being like what's the most comfortable way that we can describe this like oh the

48:11

most comfortable way that we can describe this and still keep our sort of progressive bona fides is to say it's about white supremacy do hashtag

48:17

campaigns right talk about like the times we were bullied as children et cetera et cetera et cetera and to try

48:22

and make it about us right instead of the the sort of like unsavory asians right that we don't want

48:28

to talk about right in a way it's like this is it's an act of mass erasure right because like and it even erases

48:34

the victims themselves and i found that extremely frustrating throughout that time and so that's why i wrote that chapter i was just trying to

48:40

be i i'm not saying that like we have to think of that we we should start a race war or that's not the opposite of

48:48

right and just saying like we gotta just be honest about this you know like we gotta and we and we should listen to th

48:54

not we don't have to do the things that they say but we should at least like accurately assess what they say you know

48:59

like and then you have this sort of narrative that it's like a bunch of people uh being like oh we're all doctors and

49:05

so why would you attack us you know just like we're not all doctors you know like like also what does that have to do with

49:11

anything so like yeah i don't know there's a class and there's like an immigration status element to it that uh

49:18

that i think is never talked about and so i hope that the book would sort of jab a finger at that

49:31

[Music]

49:45

yeah i think that's one of the primary messages of the book is that you describe uh children of the immigration

49:51

act of 1965 which is definitely me and you people whose highly educated parents

49:56

were let in when when that was the preference uh and then you have the more recent immigrants who don't think of themselves

50:03

as asian-american maybe often aren't engaged politically they might not speak english very well

50:09

and there's a concern of the former group that's around cultural issues representation in media

50:14

uh politics and the attempted creation of an asian-american political

50:21

identity and then there's the lived experience of the vast majority of people who don't

50:26

have those experiences or advantages or that sense of collective identity people are more like your parents maybe they'd

50:32

identify themselves as koreans in america or cambodians in america or whatever the group happens to be

50:39

and that your recommendation is that uh asian americans in the former group the

50:44

educated group should be taking on the true issues that are facing

50:51

uh the latter group which uh which have been suffering in many ways especially

50:56

over the last number of months like that your recommendation is to make common cause with uh with that group which by the way is

51:03

probably larger is that fair to say yeah yeah i mean the example that i give

51:08

in the book and the one that i speak about quite a bit is that like after the georgia spa massacres right which is

51:14

this you know traumatic experience i think of extremely traumatic experience for a lot of asian americans uh it was

51:20

about a day of people talking about the actual tragedy and then in the mainstream media and in all the

51:25

messaging channels like the conversation abruptly shifts right it becomes a lot

51:30

of people like you and me right who sort of grew up with educated parents and had went to good schools and now occupy

51:36

these sort of elite places talking about ourselves right and what do we talk about we talk about like

51:42

microaggressions in the corporate workplace right we talk about uh the time when our i certainly do not try and

51:47

talk about those but continue you did it you didn't i said people

51:53

people who grew up like us right um who occupy these positions and so and then i was thinking about it at the time

52:00

and i was like well why is this happening you know these these people are dead right these people uh are

52:06

you know they're involved in sex work which i'm not saying anything bad about sex but it's a precarious life right

52:11

it's one that needs protection right um they are all recent immigrants like they're not people who are born here in

52:17

the united states there are people who are living in almost in extremely economically precarious conditions right

52:24

they're not people who like are worried about the the way in which they're treated at a diversity seminar for

52:30

example at google or something like that and yet these are the narratives that proliferate everywhere right like the

52:35

sort of upper middle class like uh asian spokesperson asian american spokespeople start to take over and it becomes about

52:42

them and i think that that is like a i think that is a i think that's a path to nowhere

52:48

you know i think that it leads to zero solidarity with other groups right like i think that uh that it makes it so that

52:55

other groups think that like our arc that that all asians have no problems except for

53:01

what role scarlett johansson stole from one of us you know he's like who wants to be in solidarity with a group like

53:06

that right like if those are the expressed concerns and so the book is more about like or the argument that

53:12

you're talking about in the book is just that like look we need to like we need to start thinking about people

53:18

who are actually less fortunate you know we have to think about these immigrant communities we have to think about

53:23

the people like people in georgia who we say we care so much about but also are erasing from this narrative almost

53:30

immediately and replacing with us right and so um i think that's a very difficult thing

53:35

to do but i don't really see any other pathway for like whatever this thing that we call asian american identity oh

53:41

i'm going to suggest another pathway uh you might not like it but i'm just going to throw this out there

53:46

so in a way it's like ronnie chang's recommendation where he talked about how we're going to be the referee

53:51

[Laughter] so you have a country that's coming apart and i'm going to propose that

53:58

asian americans become the glue that we become the unifying group that's trying to solve the real problems keep everyone

54:05

together uh and when you talk about who we fight for i i mean i love the idea of trying to

54:10

uh elevate and embrace the cause of recent immigrant uh workers and part you know because i mean that they remind me of my

54:17

family and everyone i'm sure like a lot of people feel the same way but i want us to try to make the country

54:24

whole to see like america's interests as ours and say to folks too that if the reverse

54:30

is true if this country disintegrates which by the way it's on track to do uh it's gonna be terrible for everyone it's

54:35

gonna be terrible for us that's that's my case i don't know what

54:40

you think i think that it's i think that there's a lot of asian people who fill that role

54:45

right and it's like something that i think like it's something that wesley yang writes about too right where he talks about how

54:51

like you know like the asian male is sort of like the every male right because like he doesn't really find any

54:57

identification with any sort of culture and so he just becomes sort of the default right like i think that that

55:03

there is some in that but i also just think that like i don't know can you really like what do you think these

55:09

immigrant populations are gonna get right like i guess i'm just having a hard time uh picturing like how they

55:14

would be mobilized in that sort of way right how they would see it in their best interest well if you look at these

55:20

immigrant populations and you described in your book about your parents it's like these came in and just wanted to make a living you know something that's

55:26

like wanted to like made a decent life and i think that's what motivates a lot of folks uh you know in in a big way to

55:34

me i i want to create the conditions where that still is true for people who show up and you

55:40

know they don't need to worry about being asian and you know getting um beaten up in some way uh it it's like

55:46

a functional america uh it allows them to fulfill that ambition

55:52

i suppose right right yeah i guess i just think that that

55:58

um for me the political work is always just going to be about

56:03

um figuring out ways to have solidarity with other groups right and uh

56:08

specifically like black and latino groups right like in in america and i think that for a lot of asian americans who are you

56:16

know in my position for example where they're they're okay financially and um

56:22

but they are always trying to think about themselves how am i going to fit within this progressive space right i

56:27

think those asian americans don't necessarily care about what white people think about them you know i don't really care what white people think about me

56:33

i'm 41 years old you know i'm sort of over that right i think that the thing that those asian americans think about quite

56:40

a bit though is what black people think about them right like how because they see that as the only way to sort of have a

56:46

type of solidarity type of politics that they can be proud of right and and that i think that that's why there's so much

56:52

sort of like care around some of these issues around these attacks for example right like people are really really upset about

56:59

saying something that they feel will be treason us to that type of solidarity now the contention i make in the book is

57:04

that that sort of solidarity is very fraught right like that that outside of places like the academy or outside of

57:10

places like i don't know corporate boards or something like that or diversity spaces like it's not it's it's

57:16

very difficult to say that it's there you know if you're having a conversation about in in the new york mayoral race a

57:21

new phrase was coined which someone used people of color and then someone said well like you know

57:27

yang's of color and they were like no no people are more color [Laughter]

57:34

right right and it seems like every day a new term is created to sort of like push asian people out of like this

57:40

coalition right and so i think that mindsets is just like we need to just kind of be honest about that right and

57:46

if our goal which i think should be our goal like i mean this totally like this is like the purpose of my life's work

57:52

basically it's like can we build meaningful coalitions with those people can we have meaningful solidarity with

57:57

like uh black and latino when you say that you'd say i would say can we build meaningful coalitions with

58:04

people with anyone like i take anyone you know right right sure but like but you know

58:10

for me for me it really is like a center around like you know like what what would be like a sort of politics of

58:17

dissent right like i'm much more to the left than you politically right so um and i would just say that you know you

58:23

need to start doing work that resembles work that other people are doing right and i think that there are a lot of

58:28

asian american activists who are doing this type of work right now right they're totally ignored right they're

58:34

they're sort of but they're doing work that's like kind of like helping laundry workers or helping bike messengers

58:39

whatever like um delivery drivers right right right and i mean i i think

58:46

that like early on like when you're in your like 20s or something like that you're pretty involved in this sort of stuff weren't you um or like you're

58:52

involved in asian americans yeah yeah yeah quite quite uh quite a lot

58:57

yeah so like i think that um that if there i just think that that would be a much more appealing

59:04

type of work for people to do would be more satisfying but at the same time and i think that it would have a lot of overlaps with the type of work that like

59:12

you know coalitional black latino activists are doing as well now it doesn't mean that you have to have all

59:18

this be determined by activists right a lot of this is just work in your daily life and i think that's the only path

59:23

right but it's difficult it's difficult like the end of the book is me just sort of expressing my own

59:29

doubts that this will ever work right like that because we're so incentivized by capitalism yeah well i i the takeaway

59:36

i took was was you know you present a couple of different choices and then you're like well you know we kind of need to forge our own identity in our

59:42

own path which is something i agree with um there are a couple of things i wanted to make sure and cover there was one line

59:48

that just made me laugh out loud and i want to share it just because i thought it was so rough um you're talking about

59:53

this guy doug uh who makes his own pilot in hollywood

59:58

uh um and uh you you write about how people don't really pick up on this story even the

1:00:04

asian americans that traditionally complain about depictions and media and then uh you know he does his homegrown pilot they don't seem to care and then

1:00:10

you write something and said this doug and i understand is a pathetic story but

1:00:16

most asian american stories are pathetic and i just laughed out loud and my wife was like what are you laughing at and

1:00:22

then i like had her had her read that uh like what were you thinking when you wrote that oh man like you know

1:00:30

i mean you know this like people don't really care about our problems you know

1:00:36

[Laughter] especially asian dudes you know and um a

1:00:42

lot of i've i've been asked a lot about who this book was written for and it's not something you think about when

1:00:47

you're writing a book you just think well i gotta get to the next page and oh i'm really enjoying writing this part this is really interesting like you

1:00:53

don't have this like picture of who you're writing for when you do it maybe some people do but i certainly don't um

1:01:00

but i thought about it and i was like you know i think a lot of it is written for sort of i was listening to this podcast and you

1:01:06

know one of the things that the people said i thought was actually quite a student and said well i think he this book is for sort of not online asian

1:01:13

people right like people who don't follow politics that care like people like my sister my sister doesn't have any social media right

1:01:19

she must be she must but it's also written i think she must be like what's wrong with my life oh yeah no she she just goes she does a lot of

1:01:25

hiking and starts surfing and hangs out with her kid yeah she doesn't she's never triggered

1:01:32

[Laughter]

1:01:40

so that's one of them but i don't know i think in a lot of ways written for like uh you know like i i think it's just

1:01:45

written for people who feel like kind of [ __ ] up by you know um feeling rejected and and a lot of that is is

1:01:52

based on being like an asian dude i think like you know you just sort of feel like i don't know like nobody really cares about our feelings i think

1:01:58

that asian women go through a different version of that right but um and so i'm not discounting that i just

1:02:04

think like i don't know it's like it's kind of like there's no way to tell these stories without people just sort of laughing at us you know and so and be

1:02:11

like oh man you know like you're such a loser i'm going to share a story that this is what's going on in my household

1:02:16

because this might make you laugh um so i i've i've run for a couple of offices you know been through some

1:02:22

things uh i i my general attitude is that um no one gives a [ __ ] about you know

1:02:28

like like what i'm going through

1:02:37

off to the side uh and then uh i went over to a friend's house

1:02:45

and she bought my books very kind and had me sign them uh you know um and then among the books were some

1:02:53

books of poetry by andrew yang that i did not write uh there's apparently a guy named andrew

1:02:59

yang has like written like several books of poems uh and some people

1:03:04

think it's me and the way it's identified it's like you can't tell you know anything about it so the guy's name is andrew yang and it's all this like

1:03:10

bleak poetry about you know his struggles and like you know like the darkness and [ __ ] like that

1:03:16

um and my wife finds this hysterically funny she like goes out and buys the books of poems and is like i really want

1:03:22

you to read these aloud um but but there was a part of me that was very uncomfortable which is like oh man

1:03:28

some people are going to like buy these poems and think like i'm like writing these poems

1:03:35

no i feel that yeah yeah because you don't want to be there's a sort of mask

1:03:40

we put on right like where it's just i don't know like stuff that like adrian tomine writes about right or um it's

1:03:46

sort of like well uh we can't really like there's no sort of way to tell

1:03:52

these stories that is broadly sympathetic that won't be that we know that most people aren't cringing at you

1:03:57

know and so um and i don't know that that's sort of what i meant it's just like the asian

1:04:04

male story of struggle is very it's real to me [Laughter]

1:04:10

like we hurt you know but then there's also this other thing you know it's just like well it's tough

1:04:16

because nobody gives a [ __ ] and everyone's gonna laugh at us if we try to be hardest about it and so

1:04:22

i don't know i deal with it you know i don't know self-medication and you know general cynical affect or whatever but

1:04:29

you know it's it's a lot of like it's a lot of like you know it's dealing with this core thing and you know it's weird

1:04:34

to write a book when you're certain when that's your conclusion about america right which is like nobody really gives a [ __ ] about anything i think right

1:04:41

while also sort of occupying a very high position in the media right um

1:04:46

and uh then sometimes i think wow this piece got a lot of traffic people really do care what i think you know and then they're just like no you know like it's

1:04:53

just nobody gives a [ __ ] so yeah that's what i meant by that line it's just like you know our stories are kind of pathetic

1:04:59

well there were a lot of lines like that in the book that just struck me as unflinchingly honest uh i

1:05:06

appreciated your eye on a lot of complex issues in a way that i thought really cut to the heart of a lot of things i

1:05:12

shared a lot of it i mean you and i have a lot in common i think identifying the different uh

1:05:19

sets of experiences of people who you know might have access to certain opportunities um

1:05:25

or or educational levels and whatnot and then trying to lump us all together um

1:05:31

is part of the problem really is that like in america and you're a counter example to this which is one reason i

1:05:38

appreciate you but um that it seems like race is being try is being used as a bludgeon in so many ways

1:05:45

you know it's like going around and being like what's that you know you're latino then you should be voting this

1:05:50

way what you voted that way then like what the hell is wrong with you you know it's like something's going on like there

1:05:56

there is like this segmentation and this division uh and maybe the most important contribution your book made was like

1:06:01

look we're human beings like there's no monolith there's no asian american identity that somehow like you know has

1:06:09

us all looking and thinking a certain way uh and so i i appreciated it

1:06:21

[Music]

1:06:35

you know when i was running for president people would ask me about my identity all the time and i just you know part of it's like look i'm like i'm

1:06:41

a human being you know it's like i certainly never lay claim to representing like you know

1:06:46

millions of people's point of view it's uh did you feel that pressure like because

1:06:53

i you know i will say that i heard you like uh i had heard my friend had told me about

1:06:59

you but this was very early on and then you did the sam harris broadcast and then i listened to it you know and i was

1:07:04

like who is this guy you know like i was and like part of me was like i've never heard an asian guy like this in my life

1:07:10

like sort of like very upbeat and and and uh you know like sort of just being like these are my ideas without sort of

1:07:17

talking about identity at all right like even though you're a guy who's running for president is sort of like you know

1:07:23

you know i think you would admit like you know not traditional path towards becoming the president

1:07:29

admit that like what a revelation and so i was i remember listening to it

1:07:35

i just feel like wow you know like i just don't know any asian people like this right like uh and

1:07:41

or anyone who would do this right like that was the other thing that i was thinking is like i don't know did you feel like you had to clear away some of

1:07:48

that stuff because i that's that's why i was surprised when you know i'd be talking to some of our mutual friends or something like that and they'd be like

1:07:54

you know like when andrew was uh in his 20s he was like really involved in a lot of asian american space stuff you know

1:08:00

and he was doing a lot of stuff like i don't know did you feel like you had to separate yourself from that i don't mean

1:08:05

to interview you now but i you know i was just curious about it no not at all man it's good fun um so

1:08:11

uh i i tell a joke in asian american circles uh which you will understand

1:08:16

i say the first time you heard about me your first reaction was

1:08:22

please let him not be terrible oh 100 when you your first debate that was all

1:08:29

i was thinking you know because i was just like your first presidential debate i was like please don't make him

1:08:34

embarrassing please don't make any make embarrassment please that was the only thing going through my head you're

1:08:39

right yeah you got it so i mean that's the way we think i told my team as much too i was like look like the asians will

1:08:46

come after i demonstrate that other people are into it and then

1:08:53

uh so so when you ask about you know my my approach i genuinely was driven by

1:08:59

these big ideas around uh automation ai and technology universal

1:09:04

basic income and i saw it as my service to society uh maybe even humanity to say look like

1:09:11

we have to mainstream these ideas but a lot of the stuff i learned along the way jay is just how messed up our treatment

1:09:18

of a lot of these issues uh is because of race um and i'll share a

1:09:24

story with you that uh you know i share every once in a while so i was on a panel with a guy

1:09:29

named michael tubbs who is the mayor of stockton california young black inspirational figure friend now

1:09:35

but after the panel he leaned over to me and said andrew you can say [ __ ] i could never get away with because of a young

1:09:41

black mayor was walking around saying give everyone a thousand bucks a month like you know they would laugh me out of the room

1:09:47

but if the if the magical asian man from the future says it then everyone's like oh i guess we should listen we should

1:09:52

hear this out so so there was like this identity element to

1:09:57

uh my campaign but it was not me talking about my identity

1:10:02

in large part because that's not what i was there to talk about [Laughter] you know

1:10:08

but but i'm you know cognizant of the fact that you couldn't separate out who i am from

1:10:15

the message of the campaign yeah yeah yeah i think you're right i think that they're i don't know i i've

1:10:21

thought a lot about the way that people thought about you because you know you were asian and i don't know if

1:10:27

i ever came to a very good conclusion about it but i i think i agree with the mayor from stockton right that it did

1:10:32

give you this sort of like futuristic thing right like you did become like you know this guy that you know it

1:10:38

sort of drops down just like here are some cool ideas you know and and you can do that in ways that he can

1:10:43

i think i think you're right yeah well jay uh i just want to close on this because i i just want to share this

1:10:49

experience as someone who's written a book so you wrote a novel it's a very personal experience and then when you put it out of the world you do feel like

1:10:55

oh i hope people like it um and then this is a non-fiction book that's at least somewhat autobiographical so

1:11:02

there's a lot of personal investment too you're like oh you know like as someone who's written a few books now it's very

1:11:07

hard to just be like oh like you know i don't care about people's reaction to this book like you

1:11:12

do care because you know you use that all this time um so how how has the reception

1:11:19

been and what has your experience been because i i know that there was at least some um some stuff that that uh you know i

1:11:26

saw in passing yeah there's a group of uh not all not a lot but there is a small group of asian

1:11:32

american studies professors who are very proudly proclaiming that they're going to refuse to read the book right and um

1:11:39

i didn't understand that i don't think i'll ever understand that but you know i will say that within our community that

1:11:45

there is quite a bit of gatekeeping right and the reason why there's a lot of gatekeeping is very sympathetic is because you know like we said before

1:11:52

nobody really cares you know and so like the market is so small that people feel you know it's a crabs in a bucket type

1:11:57

of mentality people feel like they have to crawl to the top right but we're all killing each other and so i think that's

1:12:03

part of it i will say that the first piece i ever wrote for zero dollars that was published on my friend's blog in the

1:12:10

comments to that blog an asian american studies professor showed up and was lecturing me about all the things that i

1:12:15

wasn't referencing and all the people that i didn't read you know all the things that i didn't read and all the things that i didn't cite right this has

1:12:22

been my entire career right that that uh a group of of tenured professors

1:12:27

basically and and and and people who have very you know think of themselves as very very progressive people have

1:12:34

always had a bad reaction to me because my general thesis has always just been that asia united american identity

1:12:40

doesn't make sense to me it doesn't make sense to most people it doesn't make sense to most poor asians and that it is

1:12:46

really just sort of like uh you know like it's a thing that mostly deals with like elite people who go to elite

1:12:51

colleges and that you know that that that is upsetting um and so the bad you know they're those

1:12:56

people have you know somewhat big online audiences and people always like fights right and so that that sort of color the

1:13:03

first week of the book being out in a way that was i don't know for a while i thought it was funny you know but then

1:13:08

it it did make me mad because a lot of the stuff that they were saying was untrue right like so they were saying

1:13:13

that uh the book has that i've never that i am not connected and don't report

1:13:19

on immigrant neighborhoods i have the books about everybody because it doesn't make any sense yeah

1:13:25

right also my entire career has been like reporting about about immigrant neighborhoods right uh about flushing

1:13:32

about uh you know like tibetan populations in oakland like places that that that people don't even

1:13:39

know have immigrant neighborhoods like that that's been my career so it's just a lie you know and it's such a lie that i don't even know how to respond to it

1:13:45

just be like you're describing somebody else and then there was a claim that like i hadn't engaged enough in asian american

1:13:50

scholarship which like if you just open the or the an activism which if you just open the book and you look at the table

1:13:57

of contents there's two chapters on asian american activism you know they're just like these i didn't know how to respond to it

1:14:03

because uh it was just lies right and so um i don't know it's very unpleasant when

1:14:09

people lie about you on the internet and try and ruin like a uh you know a book launch for you but at the same time you

1:14:16

know like uh i do have some like sense of like perspective on it right this is a small

1:14:22

group of people they've been uh you know this is not the first time that that that this group has

1:14:28

tried to you know really criticize me i knew they were going to criticize me and and i

1:14:33

sort of expected it i just didn't expect it to sort of become such a narrative there or for them to sort of

1:14:39

you know start saying things that aren't true and i certainly did not expect a bunch of academics to refuse to read a

1:14:46

book right publicly like that's the weirdest part about it yeah that seems kind of like kind of the opposite of

1:14:51

their profession it's like this book you know i'm like we'll never enter my

1:14:57

brain it's like well you know i thought your entire thing was uh you know learning

1:15:02

all right and there's all these accusations their general accusation was that like i was i have such a huge

1:15:08

platform i'm sure you get this too you know and it's like you are the only asian person who's allowed to talk and

1:15:14

so you need to be better and it's like it's not true you know like there's so many asian writers right now there are a

1:15:19

lot of different voices i'm one person you know do i have a large platform sure you know so do a lot of other people and

1:15:26

and they write all the time like they were basically making it seem like i was the only asian writer to ever write in the new york times which you know i

1:15:32

actually find quite offensive to all the other all my colleagues who are asian who work in the new york times so um

1:15:39

i don't know i i i don't i didn't really i had a week where or a few days where i

1:15:44

was mad about it and then my mom called me and i was sitting in the bathtub and she was like you start you know

1:15:50

i pick up the phone and she starts screaming in korean which is when i know that she's like actually very mad at me

1:15:55

and she was like stop responding to people on twitter you know you're gonna go crazy

1:16:01

all in korean and then and then after that i stopped and since then it's been fine

1:16:06

i will say 99.9 of the response i've gotten from the book has been from people

1:16:12

um who sent me heartfelt emails or tweeted about it or uh

1:16:18

sent me dms or you know even called me people that i've known from a long time

1:16:23

and it's all been you know it's been not everyone agrees with everything in

1:16:28

the book right it's not a book that is meant to have a lot of people agree with everything but uh those types of conversations have

1:16:35

been great and that's you know like that's most of my experience with the book honestly right like the stuff that happens on twitter well deservedly so

1:16:41

jay i mean the things i'd say about the book is it's honest it's personal

1:16:47

uh it's edifying uh you know even from the glimpses she got now my wife evelyn

1:16:53

wants to read it um so you deserve so you deserve the praise you should be really proud of it uh and anyone who

1:17:00

does something you know in my mind like it is uh a plus

1:17:06

you know i mean it's like i don't think that that's one of the problems of today really so um hats off to you i'm really

1:17:14

excited for you i'm excited for more people to pick up the loneliest americans uh which uh i found to be a phenomenal

1:17:22

read uh fun too like i did laugh a number of times uh it's just brutal man it was

1:17:28

just like brutally honest like uh maybe someone will make a movie out of something out of it

1:17:34

yeah yeah i oh thank you the odyssey part is the nicest compliment of you know i i was

1:17:42

trying to write a book that i don't know i don't understand it's i have a very

1:17:48

sort of a relationship with writing where it's i don't it doesn't really linger you know for me like i get it out on the page and

1:17:54

it's out and so under those conditions i feel like it's okay to be as honest as possible because you're not like worried

1:18:00

about what people think about you because you're you don't even think about it and you know it's almost like this sociopathic like

1:18:07

break right once it's out then you know like it's in the world it's not really about me anymore and so i tried to be as

1:18:13

honest as possible and um you know if anyone i hope that people just take that away from it that you know like i'm

1:18:18

trying my best they really should stuff i had never seen in writing before uh it was awesome uh and you know keep

1:18:26

doing it man like anything you produce uh like you can count me in as a fan uh because even if i don't agree with it

1:18:31

i'm gonna say like you know this is a very very unflinching look at the world so thank you

1:18:38

okay thank you [Music]

1:18:54

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