On Anti-Asian Racism
Big Catch
At Sunrise, glorious sunrise
it’s a big catch!
A big catch of sardines!
On the beach, it’s like a festival
but in the sea, they will hold funerals
for the tens of thousands dead
-Misuzu Kaneko, beloved children’s poet, whose life and work is described in Maria Popova’s beautiful essay found here.
I think my favourite expression of all time is “For nothing is simply one thing.” In Uncommon Measure, musician Natalie Hodges talks about many things: performance anxiety, the feeling of “being” and “being in time” in music, as well as the complexities of being an Asian American violinist. Hodges notes that Asian Americans are racistly dismissed as being unable to understand classical music (she cites many painful anecdotes told by superstar Yo-Yo Ma). At the same time, the accomplishments of Asian musicians are undermined by white instructors who tell them they are succeeding only because of tough practice routines coming from their families – assumptions in line with forms of white supremacy that privilege “model minority” narratives. White supremacy is such a hydra-headed monster – it is very skillful at taking many different guises.
Like so many parents, the things that my children say amaze and delight me. I try and record them – for like all the cherished parts of life – love and connectedness and the speech patterns of young children – they are ephemeral. I still remember the first time I was pouring lemon juice into water and the swirls it made as it settled caused my youngest son to say: “that’s so beautiful mummy.” Children have such skillful and to-the-point ways of talking about painful and complex topics. And yet, they don’t always connect the dots quite in the ways that we expect. I was listening to my sons speak to each other in the backseat a few weeks ago, and they were talking about insects and trying to talk about sexism. “It’s not fair,” my youngest son said to his brother, “what happens with spiders. It’s sexist.” And he proceeded to tell my oldest son that some spiders eat their mates. After a long and bloody tale, my youngest son declared: “and so, *that’s* the story of what happened to the black-widow-spider-husband.” This tale really made me realize how challenging it is to speak with our children about such complex and challenging topics such as sexism and racism. As my friend Michelle Cho told me long ago, multiculturalism with no anti-racist focus is just a melting pot. Of course, we urgently need books that help us to think through the specificities of white supremacy with our children.
I have been reading Jamie Chai Yun Liew’s beautiful novel Dandelion. Dandelion does so many things – so skillfully and with poetry – it unpacks mother-daughter relationships, the violence of statelessness, the complexities of childhood friendships, but one of the things that it also does is unpack the many faces of white supremacy and anti-Asian racism with specificity. From cruelty among children to internalized colonialism, Dandelion also comments on the way that we demand a particular kind of worker to be invisible – not just their labour, but their very selves. At one point, a mother is watching a working-class Filipina caregiver take care of the children of two middle-class women – a form of gendered class and race exploitation so familiar to us in Canada, although this example takes place in Brunei. When she accidentally catches “the helper’s eye, she quickly turned away, nervous that she had attracted my attention. I suddenly became conscious of the fact that part of her job was to be invisible and ignored.” The specificities of white supremacy are so varied – hypervisibility, invisibility – all of these nuances depending on the situation are so important to unpack.
A series of unfortunate events have put this feminist picturebooks’ topic on my particular mind, including conversations with my very best friend about her nephew and painful racism he has encountered at school. I was also asked to recommend books by the awesome higher ups of my son’s school (thanks to Jocelyn Sutherland and Elyane Ruel), and so that motivated this list.
I had a very brilliant research collaborator (this time here’s looking at you Catherine-Laura Dunnington) who argued persuasively that picturebooks that address issues including racism or homophobia in didactic ways really fail children. Although I initially was drawn to these books, I have come to agree. Sometimes they are necessary, but it’s always better to have a good narrative. (Hence the genius of Dandelion).
With that in mind, the three books below to me do both the skillful narrative work of explaining some of the specificities of anti-Asian racism while maintaining a focus on joy and pleasure. Books that are common to recommend on this topic include The Name Jar and Eyes That Kiss At the Corners. While I love these books, I wanted to focus here on three books that really center joy.
As bell hooks reminds us, and as a tribute to her passing, critical thinking has the capacity to transform our lives. As hooks said, people may be materially privileged, and yet, without critical thinking, they may find it impossible to better their lives, to better the world. (bell hooks would remind us that the lack of capacity for critical thinking is why many rich white people continue to be miserable despite bathing in privilege). In the spirit of embracing books that celebrate joy in times of hardship, here are 3 books that embrace Asian Canadian and Asian American identities. Of course, these are longer conversations we have with our children – and much like talking to kids about sex - educators suggest 100 one minute conversations about racism are preferable to a single 100 minute conversation.
The Big Bath House
By Kyo Maclear and Gracey Zhang
My sons love this book. This book does so many things – it refuses fat-shaming or ageism – it celebrates body positivity. And it talks and explains bath houses and how they work. Part of what makes it an easy sell to young children is it features a sensory experience – it explains the ritual of scrubbing oneself before bathing, and one can almost feel the aaaaahhhh that all the women feel when sinking into the water, and it ends with describing a delicious dessert (which is always a win with young children in a book). In fact, my youngest son refused to read it last night before bed. When I asked why, since it’s been a favourite, he told me: I’m tired of getting hungry and you suggesting eating toast while the “book people” eat sweet beans on ice. In preparation for HGTV, this book allows an early experience of might be termed “substandard snack frustration”. The cool night, the walk home, the way a shared experience builds bonds between generation – all of these really open the possibilities for all kinds of conversations. (They also do the work of drawing in neurodiverse children – with The Bath House’s emphasis on sensory pleasures).
Grandpa Grumps
By Katrina Moore illustrated by Xindy Yan
This book does the skilful work of talking about the challenges of welcoming a grandparent across national boundaries, the way that love expresses itself differently, the emotional labour of translation for all parties, and the challenges of feeling loved across a linguistic divide. It also explains grandparent disappointment to children. I had a grandmother I found very difficult – and I remember my confusion and dismay that she did not act the way that grandparents did in TV shows. For the young hero of Grandpa Grumps, she has already made a list of what she’d like to do with her grandfather, and she is continually confused and disappointed when he does not follow through on her expectations. Trying tea services, coloring, and cooking, she feels sadder and sadder that he does not respond as expected. This to me is also about the complexities of childhood, the expectations one has and the devastation that can follow. My youngest son once asked me to make mac’n’cheese like his gramma did, and I gave it my best try. I still remember him saying with dismay and disappointment – “not noo-noos mummy, mac’n’cheese!” In that moment, I felt sad, not only for how I had disappointed him with noodles rather than the dinner he had pictured in his mind, but just that this dinner was a synecdoche for the fact that life can be like that: things turn our different than you expected, and that is not always so great. Grandpa Grumps does the important emotional labour of showing how expectations are racialized and gendered, and how looking for only one thing may make us miss another. It also speaks to all the children who are annoyed by sunshiny books. Grandpa, is, after all, in his own way, grumpy. And that spoke to both my sons in the deepest place in them – where they are sick of faking it. I was only half-listening to my youngest son as he told me about animals on a television show, and absentmindly said “that sounds great” when he described someone having a tarantula as a pet. Frustrated, he could tell I didn’t mean it, since I don’t like spiders *that* much. He told me with some energy “I like real things mummy.” Meaning: I like real emotional reactions. Grandpa Grumps is real. “I’d like to be a grandpa grumps someday” said my youngest, and I felt so strongly how much we are all failed by misogynist , white supremacist narratives like Pollyannna and princesses. Grandpa Grumps is a complicated, emotional hero. We need more of them.
Pool
By Jihyeon Lee
This is probably one of my favourite picturebooks with no words. It’s so imaginative. It was one of the first wordless books for kids I ever had, and at first I didn’t know how to read it. I clumsily stumbled along describing each thing – "that’s a pool! That’s a child!" Until my youngest son couldn’t take it anymore and shouted “I know what a pool is! Just describe the things that are exciting!” Fair. That was helpful feedback, even if it was delivered with a little edge. In any event, this features a shy child who comes to a pool. It has been overtaken with a crowd of what almost feel like tourists, and it’s hard for the young swimmer of this book to find space. Having eased himself gently into the pool, he then dives down down down beneath the crowd, where he comes upon another child. Together, they have amazing adventures – finding an underwater town, magical creatures, and even an enormous whale. When they finally come to the surface, they are ready to be friends. It’s a magical, beautiful book that reminds us of the many worlds that exist beneath the surface, in this case, literally.
Here are a few more that address white supremacy and anti-Asian racism more specifically: The Many Color of Harpreet Singh usefully talks about how white supremacy takes the form of misnaming people or changing their names, including in the painful Valentine’s day forum where many children have misspelled Harpreet’s name on his valentines, and how the little girl who has spelled it correctly signal to Harpreet that she is paying attention and is good friend material. Laxmi’s Mooch: I have written about it previously, and it is sheer genius.
In thinking about explaining complex topics to children, I also thought about the ways that all of these books permit a pause. I remember trying to explain something to my youngest son, explaining it and explaining it and basically trying to get him to agree. He was quiet while I kept talking. Finally, he said, “mummy, I wish you more pause than fast forward.” He was quoting a line from the book I Wish You More: “I wish you more treasures than pockets, I wish you more umbrella than rain, I wish you more we than me, I wish you more pause than fast-forward.” This book is about resilience, about persistence and understanding that “waves are part of the ocean”. And it’s also about the need to pause, to take in slowly, to think about these challenging concepts in order to slowly metabolize them. I hope the books above have helped you to do so.
Until Soon,
Shoshana