New York Magazine's current cover story, Paper Tigers by Wesley Yang, is the latest incendiary article to fire up the internets. To be honest, I've only skimmed through it, because I don't really have the time or stamina -- it's rather lengthy -- to fully digest it. And I'm not going to lie -- I'm largely posting the article just so people will stop sending it to me.You see, just about every month or so, the Asian American blogosphere needs something to get really mad about -- I'm not playing innocent -- and this is the latest thing to hit the fan. But what's remarkable to me is just how unremarkable the piece is. My thoughts on the piece, in short: tired and tiring.
Tired, because the piece barely brings anything new to a conversation that's been going on for decades. There's something in there, and I don't want to discount some of the real struggles of growing up Asian in America, but the entire thing gets bogged down by plodding self-indulgence and a serious lack of perspective on some of the broader issues informing identity construction.
Tiring, because it really needs another three rounds of editing. (Did I mention it's long?) It's spends an awful lot of time to basically say, "Here's what you know about being Asian American. That's totally not me." I still have a hard time believing that this landed on the cover, but I'm willing to bet we have good ol' Amy Chua to thank for that. Hell, we're still talking about that damn article. But I don't think this one's got quite the same legs.
All right, that's me saying something without really saying a whole lot -- and that's more than I intended. I was trying to avoid throwing gas on the flames already needlessly raging on Facebook, Twitter, etc. over this article. Read it for yourself, and come to your own conclusions. I'm kind of over it.
