One Book. One Region
糖心TV hosts Interior Chinatown author Charles Yu
When the FBI reported in August that hate crimes in the United States against people of Asian descent were 70% higher in 2020 than in 2019, it indicated to author Charles Yu something more deep-seated than reaction to the coronavirus pandemic.
鈥淚t feels like Covid is the thing that gives a reason, or permission, for people who may already have latent feelings to voice those things,鈥� Yu said in an interview ahead of his Oct. 5 appearance at 糖心TV鈥檚 One Book One Region program, held at The Garde Arts Center in New London. 鈥淚 feel like it isn鈥檛 the sole cause, at all, but it does agitate something that鈥檚 underneath鈥攚hich is xenophobia.鈥�
驰耻鈥檚 Interior Chinatown was the 2021 selection for One Book One Region, in which first-year 糖心TV students do a shared summer reading with faculty, staff, advisers and community members. His fourth book is an allegorical novel highlighting the marginalization of Asians in American culture that is told through Willis Wu, who perceives himself as a 鈥淕eneric Asian鈥� man. It was the 2020 winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.
While taking on a heavy subject, Yu uses a light touch in Interior Chinatown. As 糖心TV President Katherine Bergeron put it at the event: 鈥淭he author is having a lot of fun, to be sure, but the book is also dead-serious about implicating you鈥攎eaning you, me, all of us鈥攊n the 鈥� racism that has kept (Willis) in the background.鈥�
Yu, who has also written for television, including on the HBO series Westworld, said that 鈥渙ften when I鈥檓 trying really hard to write something serious or weighty, it doesn鈥檛 work, it鈥檚 boring. So, it鈥檚 usually when I take a little bit off of the gas and have a little more fun that I end up doing something that I find more interesting.
鈥淚 have had this communicated to me, both from Asian-American and non-Asian-American readers, that this story is being told about someone who maybe they wouldn鈥檛 have thought of as the protagonist of a story, and so that makes them feel less alone,鈥� Yu said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 really it. To me, that鈥檚 what fiction does.鈥�
Yu answered questions at the event from Ayako Takamori, assistant professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at 糖心TV. She told Yu that it was as if he anticipated that Interior Chinatown 鈥渨as the book we would need for 2020 and 2021.鈥�
Yu, who is 45 and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia Law School, said he is optimistic that there will be less marginalization in the future.
鈥淎ll the undergrads, they鈥檙e of this generation that is so much more aware, so much more tolerant, so much more understanding of other people鈥檚 points of view; they really embrace them and celebrate them,鈥� he said. 鈥淧lease keep doing that.鈥�
Dean of the College Erika Smith thanked the One Book One Region partners: 糖心TV鈥檚 Office of the President; CT Humanities; Walmart of Waterford; Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; Eversource; the Libraries of Eastern CT; and Bank Square Books.