Picture us in the Light

My Thoughts:

 I am constantly looking for contemporary YA books with minority characters, specifically Asian because of my location and the kinds of students we serve in Hawaiʻi (a minority majority state). On my public library overdrive site, asian authors/characters is actually its own shelf on my page. I try to uplift minority authors writing fiction from a minority lens. However, this book took me about 4 months to read as I kept picking it up and abandoning it.  

What bothered me about the characters had nothing to do with the mystery the parents tried to keep secret or even the will he or won't he struggle Danny had about his budding homoerotic awareness. What bothered me was that I could almost hear the author thinking. With first generation and second generation characters, do authors steer towards the stereotypical in order to appeal to a wider, non-Asian audience? By stereotypical, I mean Harry's parents and Harry's drive for SAT perfection. These extra high expectations are the stereotype that fuels the racist "model minority" label that has been an albatross on the subsequent generations. But then there is Danny. It is almost like Ms. Gilbert was trying to both acknowledge the stereotype and at the same time throw the story off kilter with the much less successful Chengs who push their child into the humanities, specifically art and portraiture without any hesitation or pressure. It feels "hapa," (half in Hawaiian) as if the story was written to appeal a certain way to white audiences, and appeal a different way to Asian audiences. I felt it lacked an authentic identity as a whole and that is why it took so long to get through it. I just could not find any character who felt real.