reading is fundamental
Friday, August 11, 2006
![Talk about blog karma—I complain, tongue-in-cheek, once to another blogger than I never get tagged for memes, and then I get tagged for four in three weeks! Carmen of Mixed Media Watch tagged me with this Book Meme Challenge [don’t worry, CVK, I’ll getcha back, sooner than you think!]—the challenge part, for us nerdy/bookish types, being that for each category, we’re supposed to only pick 1 (that’s ONE) book, though I keep seeing folks cheat and say they can’t possibly choose between faves. Heh. Nerds. [Yes, that’s me included, I proudly admit.] So, I’m gonna try to keep to the rules—here goes....
1. One book that changed your life:
“Racially Mixed People in America” edited by Maria P.P. Root
Okay, I’ve probably never actually read every single academic essay in this ground-breaking anthology, but it came out when I was a high school senior, first delving into the whole multiracial-identity-politics thing. The fact that this was a book about us and by us (for the most part), predicated on the notion that multiraciality was both a legitimate area of academic study and one that we had the right to define on our own terms as mixed-race scholars, that rocked my adolescent world. I brought my copy to college with me, and ran to get it when, during the pre-orientation program for incoming students of color, the multiracial group was working on its cultural presentation. All the other first-years were like, who the fuck is this guy? And that pretty much set the tone for the rest of my academic/activist career.
2. One book you have read more than once:
“The Necessary Hunger” by Nina Revoyr The total package—race, sexual orientation, identity issues, coming-of-age stuff, family drama, public education, all thrown together in a debut novel that is ostensibly about girls’ high school basketball in the pre-WNBA era (and my IRL friends know I hate sports!) but is really, in my opinion, the greatest love letter to my dear hometown—the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area (heh!), warts and all, and set in the era of my childhood too—that I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.
3. One book you would want on a desert island:
“The Tummy Trilogy” by Calvin Trillin
Lest the evidence give you the impression that my library only has one topic-section in it, I figured that if I’m stuck on a desert island, I’m gonna want some good ol’ food writing with me. Why this one, instead of, say, Trillin’s more recent “Feeding a Yen” or Tony Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour”? Two words—desert. island. This is 3 books in one volume, folks—400 pages of Trillin’s witty, hunger-inducing early food writing. If I can’t eat it, I may as well read about it.
4. One book that made you laugh:
“Ego Trip’s Big Book of Racism!” That crazy-ass shit cracked my shit up! ‘nuf said.
5. One book that made you cry:
“Children of Asian America” edited by the Asian American Coalition
Regular readers of this blog already know I’m a big softie, so it should come as no surprise that, even before The Pumpkin was born (but especially and even more afterward), leafing through this anthology of stories and black-and-white portraits of AsAm kids in all their glorious diversity got me all teary-eyed, especially Marie Villanueva’s opening poem, “A Child of Asian America.” What can I say? I’m sappy like that.
6. One book you wish had been written:
“Rice Daddies: Asian American Writers on Fatherhood” edited by the Rice Daddies Blog Collective [anybody got an agent/editor/publisher to send our way? anybody? huh? huh?]
7. One book you wish had never been written:
“In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror” by Michelle Malkin
Asian America’s own neocon talking head [yeah, you can have her back now] makes the case, against mountains of historical evidence and years of legal battles, that those sneaky Japs really were spying on “us” and so deserved to be locked up, and for that matter, so do all those swarthy Mohammedans too, just for good measure. W. T. F. ?!
8. One book you are currently reading:
“Everyday Acts Against Racism: Raising Children in a Multiracial World” edited by Maureen Reddy
This anthology of essays, many by feminist scholars, women of color, multiracial women, mothers of multiracial children, or some combination of the above, came out 10 years ago. It was put together by an English professor at a college near my own, and was designed to start a discussion about anti-racist parenting via the sharing of the authors’ personal experiences of mothering and teaching against racism. 10 years later, as the father of a toddler, I’ve decided it’s time to take it off the shelf again.
9. One book you have been meaning to read:
“Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights” by Kenji Yoshino
This one’s been on my shelf (along with too many others) for a few months, and looks to be a thought-provoking combination of memoir and legal analysis that exposes how enforced assimilation to hegemonic cultural norms is the new frontier of discrimination—okay, fine, you’re black/gay/whatever, just don’t be too black/gay/whatever. Ugh.
10. Five people tagged:
Okay, fellow bookworms, ready, set, read! You’re it, Eliaday, Nina (of Charlie and), Lee H., Ji-in, and O-Dub.](FE8C8124-76FB-4D73-BBF8-0AF492E8D71F_files/shapeimage_1.png)
