Big Little Man by Alex Tizon

Author:Alex Tizon [Tizon, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

So I vow and fail. I keep watching movies. I keep flipping on the television. I smile inwardly at the small advances, and I swear under my breath at the embarrassments. I hold my breath every time an Asian man appears in a scene. It’s me up there, Hollywood. Movies and television shows are magic mirrors, and we watch for the reflections that resemble us. They show us who we are. They give us the silhouettes of identity so difficult to envision on our own.

When Mike Yanagita blubbers into his drink, it’s me blubbering. I wish it weren’t the case. And I suspect it wouldn’t be the case if I had been exposed during my growing-up years to a multitude of like-me characters: heroes and villains, winners and losers, lovers and fighters, geniuses and morons and every variety of ordinary person, and mixtures of all of these. If movies and television had shown me a million renditions of the Asian face, then the occasional blubbering idiot would not have so much riding on him. He would be just another character.

I have another nephew, Kai. He is thirteen, half Laotian, half Filipino, and all-American in his upbringing. He reminds me of me at thirteen. For a few weeks every summer, he comes to stay at my house in Seattle. One night we drove to a video warehouse to rent movies, and for twenty minutes I watched him walk the aisles, gazing at titles, studying covers, and re-walking the same aisles.

“What you looking for, buddy?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

Finally, I saw him settle in a corner of the store he’d perused at least once already. It was the martial arts corner, starring the usual cast of characters and a few new ones who looked just like the old ones. I walked over to him, pretending to be shopping, but was furtively glancing at the expression on his face as he scanned the covers. Placid resignation. This is all there is. I knew what he’d been looking for even if he didn’t.

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