Writing the Other | Karen Kao
I grew up reading Louise May Alcott. I still have copies of all her books: dog-eared, broken-backed, and beloved. On the rare occasions when I get sick, it’s a toss-up between Alcott and Jane Austen as comfort reading. One of Alcott’s books, Eight Cousins , features a white character (Annabel) who marries the “highly satisfactory Chinaman” (Fun See). I remember the scene distinctly but it never affected me particularly until I read Maxine Hong Kingston’s response. Fun See was still exotically “other,” with his long fingernails and queue, his yellow skin and peculiar manners. That’s me, Kingston thought. She realized that she would never be a March sister. “I felt like I was popped out of her writing,” she said. “Out of American literature.” Hua Hsu, “The Making of Americans” in The New Yorker, 8/15 June 2020 The Other in the Room Maxine Hong Kingston Somehow, Kingston managed to pop herself back into American literature. She mined her own life and the st...