"In the spring of 1911, two weeks after Hoonie turned twenty-eight, the red-cheeked matchmaker from town called on his mother.

Hoonie’s mother led the matchmaker to the kitchen; they had to speak in low tones since the boarders were sleeping in the front rooms. It was late morning, and the lodgers who’d fished through the evening had finished their hot suppers, washed up, and gone to bed. Hoonie’s mother poured the matchmaker a cup of cold barley tea but didn’t break from her own work."

"Food insecurity has been a problem in the East for over 40 years. However, the area received a major blow in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, when Winn Dixie, the only major grocery store where residents could easily buy fresh produce, was irreparably damaged after the storm’s levee breaches. Nguyễn explains that for decades Versailles residents have lived “in a predominantly immigrant food desert.” According to him, one-third of people are below the poverty line, live at least half a mile away from a grocery store, and the only food available after hours is fast food."

"One wonders why Madison assumes that Sessions could not possibly have a real relationship (familial or otherwise) with an Asian child -- hence, he would have to “return” her to the store from whence she came. Reality is more complex. Sessions, who has praised the Johnson-Reed Act which created a wholesale ban of immigrants from Asian countries in 1924, has a son-in-law of Asian heritage and an Asian American granddaughter. It is possible to have Asian friends and even relatives, and yet still be a racist."

"In an Inverse interview, the cast of 'Bad Rap' expressed their rather complicated views on the popularity of Asian rappers, and this label of 'culturally appropriative.' Some seem almost resentful, which is understandable. While rappers like Dumbfoundead and Awkwafina have spent years fighting for Asian American representation, and expertly and sometimes bitterly documenting their struggles through their music, those like Keith Ape and Rich Chigga have achieved overnight success by rapping about booze and glocks and girls — topics that aren’t necessarily apolitical, but may be when removed from the black urban experience."

In Yee Ling Poon’s analysis, “movements can’t be created, in a sense. They’re based on small events — you make it big.” Poon had come to New York from Hong Kong with her family in 1970, and she immersed herself in the movement, studying the history of the Chinese American experience. The event crystalized the frustration she felt watching her parents work long hours just to survive, a pattern that had entrapped Chinese Americans for a hundred years. “The first group that was angry was us, knowing the history,” she says. “It turned out other people agreed with our anger.”

"As a work of metafiction, That Man prioritizes fragmentation and play over craft and plotlines. It is not in need of any resolution."

"The nastiest lick in the whole damn repertoire
is in the first movement, the conductor said
to the first violin."

“I see food as similar to music — in music, you listen to it to take you back somewhere,” Seuga says. “It sort of taps into a memory that you relive in that music. Food is similar. I saw people preparing foods and trying to capture certain tastes that they remember from home.”

"2016 was a remarkable year for APIA poets with dozens of newly published collections, many of which startled me and schooled me. But instead of opting for a rough survey of a larger number of valuable books, I felt moved to offer deeper, lengthier insights on five full-length poetry collections I can’t stop thinking about. Each of these wildly diverse books changed and challenged me both as a poet and as a human being. They are the voices that urged me, in moments of darkness, to get the hell up—not because the world is better today, but because we can be better than the raggedness of our world."

"More and more, I feel seen as I read fiction, and that offers me hope. Not just because of the many APIA readers who might feel a sense of validation in having their experiences and histories reflected back at them, but also because someone not APIA might read these books and feel moved by them too. Maybe when we read together, we change together. Maybe that's part of how we make this world just a tiny bit better."

What is it like to be "a foreigner, but not a foreigner"?

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