21st Century Fiction 2024

  Nicholas Conjelko      When thinking about racism in the United States, it’s very easy to think about slavery and the events circulating it. Which is fair to do so, for it will forever paint a stain on what is the history of this country. However, racism and segregation does not merely entail a difference between whites and blacks- it is far more convoluted. Asians have a long history of being oppressed in America, as pictured in the variety of media looked upon in class. These dates stretch from the Chinese Exclusion Act all the way to present day stereotypes. Interior Chinatown wonderfully encapsulates these racist tendencies- effectively showing off the everyday battles Asians have to fight in order to make their place in society. Whether discussed or not among whites, the Asians sort themselves into five separate classes: the last of which being a background male, followed by a dead asian man, then into three separate classes of a generic asian man. The “pinnac...

 In Charles Yu’s “Interior Chinatown” , Karen Lee and Willis Wu’s relationship serves as an exploration of identity within the confines of a societal structure that often limits their individual potential. As the two characters navigate the roles assigned to them, their dynamic reflects broader themes of race, representation, and the self-authenticity in a world built on stereotypes.       Willis Wu aspires to be “Kung Fu Guy,” a role that embodies the pinnacle of success within the limited options available to Asian American actors in the story's cinematic universe. Contrastingly, Karen Lee is given the opportunity to play many different roles, as she is racially ambiguous. Subsequently, Willis Wu begins to envy Karen for her racial ambiguity. While she can pass as a white girl with a tan or a Latina woman, Willis Wu is forever stuck between the confines of “generic Asian man” and “Kung Fu Guy”. Although Willis Wu envies Karen for her ability to play these role...

     Interior Chinatown's unique format is Yu's most effective tool at ensuring that the reader understands, and is convinced of, the underlying message of the book. Yu is trying to get the readers to see that racism against Asians is ingrained in American culture and keeps Asians in perpetually restrained roles. The screenplay format, as well as the use of 2nd person, are vital assets in successfully proving this point.     As soon as one begins reading Interior Chinatown, one is faced with multiple unexpected factors. The typewriter font, the spacing of the lines, and the capitalized headers which read things such as "INT. GOLDEN PALACE" (Yu, 3). One soon realizes that the book is written as a screenplay: a unique, unusual choice for a novel. This format allows for events in Wu's real life to blend with events in the Black and White show. It is often not clear when one ends and the other begins, as is the case in the courtroom fight scene where, "The...

       In Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, many Asian Americans living in Chinatown are trapped into the roles given to them on the television show, Black and White . Within this show, Asian Americans, like the main character Willis Wu, often play extras, but can work their way up the system into roles like “Generic Asian Man” and ultimately, the coveted role of “Kung Fu Guy.” Staying in one role too long often creeps into the character’s real life, as Yu writes, “Because if you never die- if you play the same role too long- you start to get confused. Forget who you really are" (130).  When their character dies, it also gives them the opportunity to focus on their real lives again, as they aren’t allowed to work for forty-five days “post-death.” Wu remembers the times his mother “died” fondly because she was able to spend more time with him. By dying in the show, Asian Americans have a reprieve from the characters they are forced to play and a chance to rememb...

Older Brother’s defense of Willis Wu identifies the difficulties of Asian-American life in America by exposing Wu’s strong internalized racism and submission to the confined roles Western society imposes on Asian Americans. Older Brother explains that Wu’s behavior is a product of the racist environment he has grown up in. Wu reacts to this defense with confusion, signaling he does not fully grasp what Older Brother is saying. This is significant as it suggests that Wu is so conditioned to assimilate that he does not realize the pressures that cause him to behave this way.  When defending Wu in court, Older Brother ironically accuses him of being “guilty” of internalizing the racism perpetuated against Asians in America. When explaining the process of Asian Americans playing stereotypical roles he says, “Figuring out what you’re allowed to say. Above all, trying to never ever offend…Be appealing and acceptable, be what they want to see. My client was a part of this system. Both vic...

The use of emotion, or a lack thereof, is purposefully used to emphasize characters’ attitudes towards stereotypes in Interior Chinatown . Characters throughout the novel often feel flat and resigned to their circumstances. This is especially demonstrated by romantic relationships in the novel. For example, Ming-Chen Wu tells Dorothy “We don’t choose our circumstances. We will have to fall in love when we can. Stolen moments. Between jobs, between scenes” (155). One might expect Ming-Chen to be frustrated or impassioned about his inability to have his own love story, yet he remains stoically content with the hand he has been dealt in life. He accepts that an ardent love story is not in the cards for him. He’s okay with that. Characters like Ming-Chen contrast with those who are more emotional and have higher aspirations. One such character is Karen. Though Karen embodies the Pretty Oriental Flower stereotype in Black and White , she dreams of a world in which her daughter can be more....

One of the things I found particularly interesting about this book is how it highlights that a person’s perception of a situation or construct becomes their reality. Throughout the whole book, most characters, especially Willis, are stuck in the stereotypes that have been placed on them and they are unable to see a way out. Willis goes about his life always playing in certain roles that someone else has designed for him. He falls into the role of providing for his father, he plays all of the roles as an Asian man in TV, and he begins to believe that the only way he can get anywhere in his life is by following the path society created for him. As Willis is having his epiphany at the end of the book, he says that he was, “internalizing the role so completely that [he] lost track of where reality starts and the performance begins” (p 246). People of all races, ages, and backgrounds are guilty of internalizing the stereotypes that society creates for them to fit into, and it leads people t...

In "Interior Chinatown," Yu highlights the complexities of fatherhood while also diving into the challenges that Asian Americans face in an America full of stereotypes. The contrast between Willis Wu’s relationship with his father and later, his own relationship with his daughter, Phoebe, is significant in Yu’s overarching message of identity and hope. Willis Wu’s father is a prime example of what Yu describes throughout the book as a generic Asian man, trapped in stereotypes and stuck in his role as the “Old Asian Man.” As Yu states, “He’d played his role for so long that he’d lost himself in it” (Yu 17). This demonstrates how societal expectations that place all Asian Americans in one box, reducing them to invisible and foreign figures, trap men like Willis Wu’s father in roles that don’t reflect their true selves, leaving them alienated from their own aspirations and their families. Willis Wu also starts out trapped in Chinatown, aspiring to be “Kung Fu Guy,” which he sees...

  Willis Wu is in search for personal glory as an actor and as an Asian man throughout the entire novel. Upon meeting his co-star on Black and White , Karen Lee, Willis realizes how successful she is as a woman with a common ancestry to himself. However, after developing a romantic relationship with her, Willis finds himself subtly jealous of her accomplishments with Yu writing “You’re happy for her. You are. You know she’s destined for bigger things than you” from Willis’ perspective (174). It’s very difficult for Willis to live in the shadow of his eventual wife because he spends his life dreaming of fame as an Asian man playing “Kung Fu Guy.” Due to his stubbornness, Willis cannot accept that Karen is more successful than him and refuses to realize that she is presenting him with a valuable opportunity and a way out of Interior Chinatown when she offers him a role on her own show (177). His desire to be known as more than just another Asian character eventually separates him fro...

 Phoebe Wu’s Role in Interior Chinatown To what extent is assimilation beneficial to counteract stereotypes? Charles Yu explores this idea through the character of Phoebe Wu in his novel, Interior Chinatown . Phoebe is the daughter of the main character, Willis Wu. Phoebe’s mother, Karen, takes her to grow up outside of the novel’s main setting, Chinatown. Because of this, Phoebe is not constantly surrounded by the stereotypical roles set for Asian people in life and in the fictional show, Black and White. Phoebe’s world is still formatted as a television show, but instead of a cop drama, Willis describes that she is in a “cartoon. Sort of” (Yu 188). Willis’ inability to fully categorize Phoebe’s show indicates its breaking of boundaries, especially as the show revolves around Phoebe as the main character. This is wildly different from Willis’s presence on television, as he is seen as a replaceable background character, the “Generic Asian Man” (10), throughout the majority of the n...

 Yu, in Interior Chinatown , begins each section with a unique epigraph, strengthening the themes throughout the book while highlighting the racism and stereotypes endured by Asian Americans. The first epigraph, quoted by Bonnie Tsui, states, “[i]f a film needed an exotic backdrop... Chinatown could be made to represent itself or any other Chinatown in the world. Even today, it stands in for the ambiguous Asian anywhere” (xv). Tsui claims that in any situation where an Asian location is in demand, that demand can be easily fulfilled with any Chinatown, playing the universal role of a generic living situation in Asia. The emphasis on any Chinatown possessing the power to represent any other Chinatown shows one of the problems Yu tries to highlight—the diversity between Asian Americans that goes unacknowledged and unrecognized. Starting Interior Chinatown with this blunt epigraph lays the foundation for Act I and the rest of the book to characterize the vast difference between what ...

  In "Interior Chinatown," Charles Yu explores Asian identity in America through the experiences of Willis Wu, who finds himself trapped in Hollywood’s narrow racial roles. As he navigates his career on the show "Black and White," where he plays a series of demeaning parts—from Background Oriental Male to Generic Asian Man— Willis’s journey reveals the significant impact of systemic marginalization on his self-perception. The novel takes a turn during the courtroom scene, where Older Brother pushes Willis to think if he sees that he ”[has] not been and can never be fully assimilated into mainstream [White American culture]” (232).  This moment highlights the extent of the stereotypes imposed on Asian individuals and reflects a broader cultural narrative that reduces them to generic identities. As Willis internalizes these roles, he struggles to distinguish his true self from the acting characters he’s forced to embody, revealing a sense of hopelessness and frustrati...

  The book Sing, Unburied, Sing connects the living and the dead through complex interactions that both heal and inflict pain on the characters. The story spans over multiple generations, intertwining them by showcasing the dead as ghosts that interact and shape the personalities of Jojo, Leonie, and Pop. These ghosts serve as reminders of the pain, guilt, and unresolved trauma carried by the living. Given, despite being killed by Leonie’s cousin, continues to appear to her. His presence provides both comfort and a painful reminder of her responsibility to improve and be a better person and a mother. His ghost pushes Leonie to reflect on her actions, encouraging her to become a better person, especially in her role as a mother. His silence as a ghost portrays the deep connection shared between Leonie with her brother, that his appearance and looks of disapproval as a ghost are not just her hallucinations at work but her conscience that have taken up Givens form to pull her out of t...

The book Sing, Unburied, Sing connects the living and the dead through complex interactions that both heal and inflict pain on the characters. The story spans over multiple generations, intertwining them by showcasing the dead as ghosts that interact and shape the personalities of Jojo, Leonie, and Pop. These ghosts serve as reminders of the pain, guilt, and unresolved trauma carried by the living. Given, despite being killed by Leonie’s cousin, continues to appear to her. His presence provides both comfort and a painful reminder of her responsibility to improve and be a better person and a mother. His ghost pushes Leonie to reflect on her actions, encouraging her to become a better person, especially in her role as a mother. His silence as a ghost portrays the deep connection shared between Leonie with her brother, that his appearance and looks of disapproval as a ghost are not just her hallucinations at work but her conscience that have taken up Givens form to pull her out of the sel...

    In  Sing, Unburied, Sing , the author Jesmyn Ward writes a story based on African American family dynamics and the struggles from past and present racism. In this novel, we see how the effects of violence caused by slavery and racism continue to affect African American families in the South. The author achieves this portrayal of violence through flashbacks, death, ghosts, and the three different generations within the main character's family.       The novel discusses the family dynamic of an African American family in Mississippi from the perspective of Leonie, the mother of Jojo and Makayla, and from the son of Jojo. From the start of the book, we can see how the family uses physical punishment to discipline their children. The physical abuse is normalized by Jojo when it comes from Pa and he is shown to respect him and look up to him. However, when the abuse comes from Leonie and his father Micheal, he feels angry, upset, and also afraid. This...

  One of the key subjects of the novel Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward is the complexity of family dynamics, especially the idea of a dysfunctional family structure. Here, Jojo and Kayla’s mother Leonie struggles with addiction and severely neglects the responsibility of raising her children. Mam and Pop, Leonie’s parents, take on many of the duties that were required in the upbringing of Jojo, Leonie’s oldest child, however, once Mam becomes bedridden due to cancer, the task of raising Kayla falls on Jojo, Kayla’s brother. Jojo, only thirteen, holds a large amount of responsibility, yet does not take care of his younger sister begrudgingly. The lack of attention and care given to him by Leonie, his mother, leads him to want to provide the opposite for his sister, and he raises her in an extremely protective and loving manner. The contrast between Jojo’s method of parenting his younger sister and his mother’s lack of maternal care is evident in the way they describe Kayla, the ...

  Intergenerational trauma is the notion that large traumatic events in one generation of a family can be passed down to the children, grandchildren, etc. of the people who experienced the event. Throughout Sing, Unburied, Sing , the lasting effects of slavery and brutality against African Americans is shown in many different ways.     The blatant racism in this family's community is prevalent throughout every aspect of their lives. They face discrimination and racial profiling by police officers, longer, more brutal, and often wrongful incarcerations, and verbal/physical assault merely because they are black. Although racism is still ever present today, we can also see the impacts that past acts of racism has on the family, too. For instance, Leonie's brother, Given, was shot and killed by a white man intentionally, which was covered up as a "hunting accident." This racially motivated crime devastated Given's parents, who then turned a blind eye to their other ch...

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward dives into the intricacies of family relationships, defining present difficulties that may occur, in addition to the unconditional love and support families can encompass. The novel provides a deep analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of family connections in times of adversity through the experiences of Jojo, and his family situation.       Throughout the novel we see highlights of the positive effects of family, such as the power of love and support. One example, specifically, is how Jojo’s family is a source of love, care, support, and happiness. We see this in chapter 12, when Richie watches River make breakfast for Jojo and Kayla, saying, “I would give anything to taste bread made with such care” (Ward 239). Demonstrating his jealousy in the unconditional care and loving environment that is possessed in this moment of the novel. In addition to this, we see more positive effects of family through shared experiences, an...

  Nicholas Conjelko Sing, Unburied, Sing Blog Post  9-24-24       Racism is very prevalent in the lives of those who experience it. It can shape their experiences, the way they live their life, and their viewpoint on themselves and others. Those who do not experience racism on a daily basis have a hard time understanding this difference in lifestyles. Sing, Unburied, Sing does a great job at effectively pointing out how racism changes the lives of the main characters. In Jojo’s case, he faces racism when a cop pulls their family over in the midst of a family trip. Jojo is a little boy, his sole focus in life to protect Kayla- yet, the cop has no eyes for this. The officer sees the color of Jojo’s skin, and without having any empathy for the young boy the officer “reach[es] in his pocket” and “draws his gun on [Jojo], points it at his face” (page 102). A routine stop for a swerving of the car would lead to a ticket at most for a majority of white people, yet...

  One of the parts of this book that I found most upsetting is how little effort Leonie is willing to put into her kids. That's not to say that she doesn't love her kids, or that she is more flawed than other characters in the book, but as someone who’s parents provided me every opportunity to succeed, I have a hard time reading this book and listening to Leonie’s thought process, even though I do feel bad for the grief she had to go through. Leonie didn't deserve what happened to her brother, and I can't judge how she chooses to deal with that. And sometimes, grief lasts longer in certain people, and it can affect someone for the rest of their life, but learning how to deal with that grief in a healthy way, especially when you have kids is very important, and instead of turning to her loved ones for help, Leonie turned to drugs. Jojo shares with us some insight on the kind of mother Leonie was before she started drugs, and how she was more nurturing and actually spent ...

  Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing shares the story of a family residing in a small town in Mississippi. Interwoven with themes of racism, addiction, abuse, and the power of family dynamics, the novel showcases the complexity of its characters using different narrative outlooks by switching characters' perspectives. The discussion regarding abuse is widespread in the novel and isn't defined as one type. There is discussion of drug abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, as well as other forms portrayed throughout the novel. Leonie, in particular, seems to be both a victim and perpetrator of this abuse.  Abuse is blatantly displayed both verbally and physically throughout the entirety of the novel. Leonie's connection with her children is one of apathy, and throughout the novel, it almost feels as if the only connection she has with her children is through her abusive tendencies towards them. Similarly, in the way she uses and abuses drugs to make the anger and frustra...

  Millions of children are raised in a family with unconditional love, others are raised by people who love them only halfway, and the rest of the millions don’t receive love from any parent.   Jojo and Kayla receive love from their grandparents and so does Leonie, while Richie receives it from Pop.   In this way, does love and family coexist? I believe there is always love in the family someone makes for themselves, whether that be by blood or not.   For Jojo, he didn’t find love from his mother, so he seeks out Pop who he respects and wants to make proud.   The very first page of the book describes Jojo’s desperate need for Pop to understand and respect him.   After all, Jojo doesn’t even consider Leonie to be his mother, and Kaya, despite being so young, doesn’t give her this title either.   When it comes to Richie, he died protecting his family.   Readers can assume that his mother and father are absent in similar ways that Leonie is absen...