“Who gets to be American. What does American look like?”
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu presents the story of a “generic Asian man” and his community in a unique format- a Hollywood script. This format makes the book fun and fresh, but occasionally hard to follow and understand what is fact vs. fiction. The undercurrent of this novel is the struggle of this community to break outside the limited (acting) roles and stereotypes that have boxed them in for centuries. One quote from the book “Who gets to be an American? What does an American look like?” exemplifies some of the struggles highlighted in this book. Also admired how the author tackled the contemporary tensions between the Asian vs. Black communities. We recommend- 4 out of 5!