Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen Headley
Nothing but the Truth is one of those novels aimed toward young women at the cusp of their coming of age, with a twist; it’s for young Asian American women at the cust of their coming of age! More specifically I suppose, hapa (mixed race) women.
Summary:
Patty Ho is basically a gangly outcast who happens to be good at math. For the summer after her freshmen, instead of heading to the Seattle beaches to ogle white boys with her white friends. As expected, Patty’s mother is one of those shrill, “aiiyaaaa!!,” overbearing Taiwanese/Chinese/Japanese/Korean/etc mothers you’d find at Margaret Cho’s house. Or yours. Patty commiserates over her mother’s overprotective and strange herbal concoctions while feeling envious at her old brother, who is about to enter Harvard and looks more Taiwanese than hapa, like her.
Patty’s resentment at herself and her life is compounded by the absence of her white father - who seems to have run away by her mother’s craziness - being bullied by dumb white guys at school, and potluck dinners comprised of several Taiwanese families that meet regularly to show of their children and gossip visciously about others.
Patty goes off to math camp at Stanford, falls in love with an Asian American boy(!), meets all sorts of characters that challenge her notions of what it means to be Asian American - hunky Asian guy, empowered Asian female, nerdy Asian girl who is seething with sexual so-and-so underneath, blah blah blah - and finally learns to embrace herself, her mixed heritage, and consequently her mother.
My thoughts:
After an abortive attempt to write lurid fiction to make money on the side, I am well aware of the genre called “chick-lit.” My problem with this book is that it sells itself as such with an ethnic twist. However, Chen Headley’s desires to appeal to a wide audience while remaining loyal to Asian Americans often collides in moments that create an awkward flow.
Conceptually, I enjoyed this book as an attempt into ethnic chick-lit. But since chick-lit itself is often problematic, a second reading of this book makes it less desirable. As typical of chick-lit, inane descriptions/formulas (”brains + brawn = lots of yummy”) and self-empowering labels like “hip hop happening hapa mama” run amok, making it a little embarassing to read. Additionally, I found that Patty’s path of self-empowerment is made at the expense of others, a strategy already familiar to those in power. Huh.
Still Chen Headley is determined to make a niche for Asian Americans in chick lit. When confronted by her mother - who has traveled cross state lines to check on her daughter - about her budding relationship with a Chinese guy, Patty begins explaining the history and politics between China and Taiwan. Out of place for chick-lit but nice info for those not in the know.
When I read about Patty’s relationship with her mother, I instantly think “Amy Tan for Teens!” Like the mother figures in Tan’s works, I find them repetitve: shrill and inscrutible to the daughter until some big catharsis reveals that shrillness = caring and inscrutability = wise secrets you are still too stupid to understand. Likewise, Patty seems to have found a permanent peace at the end treating her mother’s antics with a fondness and patience found typically in long-distance relationships, not in teen girls still living at home with their parents.
Patty also mixes her metaphors and occasionally calls up outdated terminology for painful Pan-Asian palaver:
- “…my life ig going to be filled with even more disaster than it is now with this Mount Fuji-sized pimple on my chin…(p 2)”
- “I emerge from my Great Wall of Chinese Silence…(p 132)”
- “I notice that Katie looks deflated, a cream puff without her fluff. Hi-yah, White Girl! The Kung Fu Queen is back in town (p 174)”
- “And weirdly, I miss Anne, my Asian Mafia gal pal who I’ll take over any China Doll (p2 11)”
- “Now that I have my own samurai guy, I wish Stu were anywhere but here, listening to this…(p. 154)”
- “Pots clatter and clash; Mama’s Wok-and-Roll Band. (p 23)”
- “My stomach quakes a little, but I lift my eyes to Steve, glaring at him with my best Dragon Woman stare. (p 226)”
- “…Jasmine karate chops her with a comment of transparent dislike…(p 93)”
- “That’s not how Kung-Fu Queens treat their Asian Mafia soul sisters (p 177).”
Has anyone read Shawn Wong’s American Knees? Did anyone notice that even though there were Asian/Asian relationships, this rare pair was mollified by their unusual beauty? Sure. Asian American woman can go out with Asian American guy, but AA guy happens to be tall with Western-features? Similarly, Patty only finds Asian guys hunky when they are tall and distanced as far away from looking “too Asian” as possible. And when Patty’s only Asian love interest proves to be a bastard fuck-face, the lack of interest in any of the numerous Asian boys at math camp suggest she goes back to her old preferences. That, and her flirting with white guys only in the end.
Self-loathing and self-validation through the invalidation of others run rampant in this book even after Patty becomes confident in being hapa.
1. Validation of being hapa at the expense of being not-hapa:
a. When Patty’s empowered feminist 100% Chinese roommate sighs at Patty’s having eyelids available for crazy empowered feminist eyeshadow.
b. Although Patty is reminded that being good at math and being Asian doesn’t necessarily purposefully fulfil certain stereotypes, this validation is by her white TA, which she instantly accepts.
c. Initial jealousy of the “China Doll Club” or “all-Asian” girls who also attend the potlucks turns into triumphant loathing of their being all-Asian. Although in the end Patty understands that being of Asian heritage doesn’t mean she has to suscribe to stereotypes about Asians projected by others, she ironically still uses this same type of judgment on others even after her self-discovery.
2. Self loathing of skinny tall body, physical traits that are desirable by today’s standards.
Aforementioned skinny tall body is referred to several times throughout book. A typical device in chick-lit, where the main character’s desirable physical traits are repeated for the benefit of the reader; by this we are told she is desirable physically, yet she herself doesn’t know about this goody surprise, so not all is lost.
3. Validation of being hapa at the expense of white archnemesis, who happens to be too rich, too white, and too rich.
Did I mention rich? With pattern behaviors of a racist from the sixties? This girl was just too one-dimensional. We get it. Stupid white woman.
While this is not a horrible book, Nothing but the Truth reveals the troubling framework behind chick-lit and what many would consider empowering identity politics. I saw a lot of it in school and wasn’t pleased; unity through asserting superiority over others? No thank you. It didn’t last for the colonialists and it won’t work for anyone else.
Chen Headley makes a valiant attempt to appeal to teens, to hapa kids (she dedicates this book to her own children), and to young women. Unfortunately she chose the wrong genre and the wrong way for Patty to embrace her hapa self.
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