Julia Lee wants to debunk the stereotype of Asians being the model minority, who are seen as quiet, passive, acquiescent, sweet and polite.

She reads her memoir very well, with passion and clarity, and excellent intonation. Her reading draws you in.

The truth, she says, is that Asians are full of rage - first at their mothers for insisting on saving face, teaching their children to be decorous and always polite in public; and at the stereotypes of Asians propagated by society, starting at school, and the racism and classism many times shown by students, teachers, and school administrators.

The author goes through the history of immigration in America, including
the banning of Asian immigration for 60 years, before the Hart-Celler Act of 1965 relaxed the quotas. She cites the Korean shopkeepers caught up in the LA uprising and states that black versus Asian and minority myths are propagated by society at large to keep the minorities at war with each other and to keep the white majority on top.

She sees a solution in having all people seen as humans, not as a racial group, and be treated as human beings, and not as just belonging to a minority group.

The author is convincing in the history and the facts she presents for her case, and very detailed, giving multiple examples of racism and the violence and self-hatred that it can propagate. There is so much more to this book than I can cover here, but I recommend it highly as relevant to everyone living in America.

Julia Lee is not amused, and she’s decided to say the things nobody else is saying. In this deeply analytical, provocative memoir, she tells us about her own experiences growing up, and the issues faced by Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in the United States, where “we are critical to the pyramid scheme of the American Dream.”

My thanks go to Net Galley, Henry Holt Publishers, and Macmillan Audio for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

In some ways, I feel as though I am reading someone else’s mail as I read this, because it is clearly intended for an audience of people of color. However, I did read it, and I’m going to review it.

When the discussion of race in the U.S. comes about, it is, as Lee states, almost always a conversation about Black people and Caucasians. Those that don’t fit into either group are sidelined. Perhaps more harmful is the way that people of Asian descent are presumed to be sympathetic to the status quo. Ever since a major news periodical dubbed Asians as “the model minority” back in the early 1960s, expectations and assumptions have leaned in that direction. And the roots of this division—Black versus Asian—make this a particularly thorny assumption to untangle. After all, a large percentage of African-Americans can trace their lineage to slavery; their ancestors weren’t born in the States, nor did they choose to come here, but were kidnapped and brought by force. Angry? You bet! But Asian immigrants came of their own accord, oftentimes fleeing untenable circumstances in their countries of origin. And so, their children, and those that have come after, have largely been indoctrinated to be appreciative. If things don’t go well, they tell them, then we must work harder!

This Caucasian reviewer comes to you without the Asian background, appearance, or experience that Lee speaks of; yet I live in a city that has one of the largest Asian populations in the U.S., and am married to an Asian immigrant, and parent to a child that is half-Japanese. So many of the stories—strangers that ask where you’re from, and won’t accept the truth of “California,” where Lee was born, or “Seattle,” my daughter’s hometown, are familiar ones.

Lee is fed up with the mainstream news stories that endeavor to pit Asian and Black people against each other. Her parents were small business owners in a mostly Black part of Los Angeles during the riots of 1992, and her experiences inform her conclusion, that there must be solidarity between all people of color in order to successfully fight for significant change.

The one bone I have to pick is the casual manner in which she dismisses the question of social class as a key factor. Her very brief note about this is that it’s a tomato and to-mah-to issue, not worth much discussion, because most people of color are working class. This is simply untrue, and it enforces a stereotype of Black people as being mostly poor and dispossessed, when in actuality, eighty percent of Black people in the US live above the poverty line. There are African-Americans that have far more money than I will ever see; some of the many Asian groups have a higher median income than Caucasians. So yes, social class is a huge factor here, one that Lee should examine more critically. There are working class Whites that can be allies; there are wealthy families of color that would shut down the struggle, given half a chance. The missing star in my rating reflects her failure to recognize this, and to offer concrete solutions to this problem.

The book’s title comes from Lee’s mentor at the otherwise very white-supremacist dominated Harvard—Jamaica Kinkaid. I actually gasped when I saw this. What a luminary she found to guide her!

Both the audio and print version of this book are equally readable, so go with whatever you usually prefer.

This is a fine resource for those seeking to examine Asian and Asian-American racial dynamics. Read it critically, but do read it. There’s a lot here that has needed to be said for a long, long time.

I enjoyed this book! It was great to listen to it in the author’s voice, hearing her thoughts directly from her.

I found her perspective to be very interesting and timely, and I feel very happy to know that’s she’s spreading her wisdom as a professor in her own right! Not only does she look interior - at how the way she was raised impacted her outlook - but she also takes a larger view at how society influences our unconscious bias and racism. Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced listen!

This was a wonderful book - I highly recommend the audiobook read by the author. Hearing her voice speak life into the emotions she confesses and confides made the book feel personal, like listening to a friend. The book is deeply personal, with stories ranging from family histories of Korea to her own private high school experiences, to her Ivy League schooling and work with finance bros and academia. She cites the great American thinkers on race, identity, and Americanness who have come before her and builds on their foundation. All the while, she connects dots between the model minority myth and the ways white supremacy wields this image of Asian American-ness as a weapon against Black Americans and a buttress for racism and white supremacy. The titular point being that as our nation's white supremacist systems try to use an image of high-achieving Asian Americans against other people of color (thereby building a system of racial supremacy wherein Asian Americans can benefit from being white-adjacent, but can never achieve 'whiteness' [see also: human, American] itself). Lee calls on her readers to reject that imaginary hierarchy and to reject a hierarchy altogether by demanding that every person's humanity be recognized by the systems of the state and society.

As the publisher suggested, I do think this is a nice addition/complement to Minor Feelings and I also think readers who like this book will enjoy Inferno: A Memoir by Catherine Cho. She also reflects on han and the rage and shame that many Korean Americans feel, living in a racist society that seems always to suggest inferiority, and feeling a frustration at the lack of room or safe space to express that rage externally.

✨ Review ✨ Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America - Written and Narrated by Julia Lee

This is probably one of my favorite memoirs I've read -- and Lee's moving narration of the book only helped that claim.

The book follows her life from a child of immigrants in California to her experience in the Ivy Leagues and beyond. She weaves her experiences with larger reflections of race in America, and on her own explorations of her racial identity in a world that largely recognizes a black & white binary. From the 1992 LA Riots to the BLM protests after the murder of George Floyd, she examines what it means to be a Korean American in the U.S.

I found this especially impactful for the following:
1. as a reflection on the experience of marginalized students in higher ed, especially in institutions overflowing with privilege
2. her analogies / descriptions of how race & privilege function in the U.S. -- she provided new ways of thinking about and describing racial issues that stretched my thinking
3. smooth and engaging writing style - I was hooked from the first page.
4. the rich layers of Korean / Asian identity that exist in the U.S. - she really disentangles perceptions and stereotypes of Asian Americans as a monolithic population
5. her work to sort out innate Korean ways of thinking from mental health issues produced by systemic racism and from generational trauma

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: memoir
Pub Date: out now!

Read this if you like:
⭕️ Korean-American / Asian-American memoirs
⭕️ reflections on race and higher education
⭕️ discussions of race and privilege in the U.S.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

EXCELLENT BOOK. the narrator was good and I liked the author's choices in the thinkers, activists and leaders she lifted up both in and out of the Asian American comunity.

Remember that antiracist work that everyone was doing back in 2020 and 2021? If that was you and you have since neglected doing the work, then this is the book for you. And if you never started doing the work, this is also for you.

In the U.S., we often assume that racism equates to anti-Blackness. We treat race as a binary – Black or white – and ignore Indigenous, Asian, and Latinx peoples in the discussion of racism. Or if we do include Latinx and Native people, we skip over the “model minority” – Asians – as they are frequently considered white-adjacent.

In Biting the Hand, Julia Lee discusses this racial binary and her struggle of growing up Asian American within this culture. In three distinct parts titled “Rage,” “Shame,” and “Grace,” Lee guides readers through her struggle with racial identity, occupying white-centered spaces, finding her footing as a professor of African American and Caribbean literature, and rejecting a compulsory allegiance to whiteness.

Throughout the book, Lee uses works by critical race theorists, diasporic literary scholars, activists, and writers of color. I loved how Lee tied her personal stories with these ideas, philosophies, and theories from the lexicon of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous thinkers. For me, this added depth and complexity to the narrative while also providing context from the broad experience of minorities in a white-supremacist country. It is important to note that Lee discusses these principles in an accessible manner so that readers of all education levels can understand.

In addition, I loved that Lee centers her memoir within the context of America’s racial binary. As a white person, I cannot say that I fully understood race as a binary system before reading Biting the Hand. Lee easily demonstrates this concept by recounting her experience as a child of Korean business owners during the 1992 LA Uprising. Through this and other stories, Lee shows how she struggled in a system that positions minorities to see other people of color as rivals. She further explains how this dangerously exacerbates interracial tension and fails to acknowledge the socioeconomic disparities among the diverse range of Asian American communities.

Because I read Biting the Hand as an audiobook, it is hard for me to comment on Lee’s writing. What I can say is I found the book compelling and intellectually engaging. While I love authors narrating their own books, I particularly appreciated that Lee did not shy away from her raw emotion. This made the book even more powerful.

Overall, Biting the Hand is an important work that merges memoir, social commentary, and race studies while exploring the unique experience of Asian Americans in the U.S. I really enjoyed this book and will be buying a physical copy to read again soon. I highly recommend it regardless of your race and especially if you are interested in dismantling white supremacy in this country.

Taking readers on an empathetic journey from her childhood memories through her academic career and parenting choices, Julia Lee shares her insightful perspective on the model minority stereotype, white supremacy, and breaking intergenerational traumas.

Lee uses amazingly well-written stories to discuss how she decided to stop catering to the white gaze.

I listened to the audio version of this book read by the author. I love that because you know that every inflection imparts exactly the meaning that the author wanted to get across.

This book is a bit of a departure from my norm. Not because I don't care about racism, but mainly because I just don't get it. Or didn't. To me, people are people. But then I'm among the privileged white. I recently discovered that I'm more Irish than the majority of German that I thought I was. It doesn't mean a hill of beans...I'm still among the privileged white. This author and all the others who are not white never will be. They don't need to be, but they do need to feel the securities and lack of racism that the privileged white do. That's part of what I learned from this book. It's a very small part of what I learned from this book.

This book was insightful, informative and full of emotions of the author for what she and her family, friends and all of colored skin go through on an average day. She quotes many others and shares past history to impart their feelings on sections of life that need to be made better and makes sure that we each know that we must have a part in changing things.

Thanks to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the gifted copy. All thoughts are my own.

Biting the Hand by Julia Lee, publish date 4/18/23 from Henry Holt & Company.
I received an advanced copy of this audiobook courtesy of NetGalley, Macmillan Audio and the author for review purposes. Thank you, and here goes my honest opinions for better or for worse.

I originally questioned requesting this audiobook for a review due to a short due date, as well as the contents of the book. I read it was centered around LA uprising in Rodney King era, caused by racial conflicts and oppressions. This topic didn't attract me at all; however, I heard great reviews from other reviewers and I am a fan of non-fiction books in general. And am I so glad to be exposed to this book! Thank you!

The writer and a professor Julia Lee grew up in LA, to a first generation Korean immigrant parents who, like many other immigrant parents, worked tirelessly to provide for their children. Each immigrant story is unique though, in which we all struggle to understand our identity and love for our origin country as well as our adapted country. It gets further complicated when you are born in the USA and consider yourself an American in a country which will view you as a foreigner, especially when you are constantly mistaken as a Chinese or Japanese descent. As the title suggests, Lee is angry for injustice she witnesses, even though she is supposed to be a part of "a model minority." Throughout the book, she describes her experiences growing up in California, attending Princeton, trying to get a job while pregnant, all from her unique viewpoint, with a specific focus being an Asian female. I am very thankful her willingness to share her experiences so we can all learn her point of view.

The audiobook lasts 7 hours and 5 minutes, narrated by the author, and it went very quickly.
I would rate 4.5 stars out of 5 stars personally rounded up to 5. I thought the book is very well written and represented, and glad I gave it a chance.

Biting the Hand is a searing memoir that sets Lee's personal story of growing up Korean in Southern California within the broader social context of white supremacy and racial stratification. The author draws from the stories and writings of writers, academics, activists, and contemporary media celebrities (among others) to show the ubiquity of anti-Asian policies, postures, and cultural expectations within white supremacist America.

This is a book I'll use in adult education groups geared towards addressing oppressive racist systems and repairing harms. I'm grateful to have gotten the chance to read it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy for review!

“We were all trapped in this fantasy called the American dream, and none of us were brave enough to disavow it completely. It gave meaning to my parents’ lives, it turned my sister and me into exemplars, and it glossed over the parts that were inconvenient or ugly.”

This was a phenomenal read. Julia Lee dives deep into the oppressive systems that run rampant in America, and the way that White Supremacy is deeply ingrained in our history and society. This book wraps memoir, reflection and revelation into one beautifully written experience.

Julia writes of her experiences growing up as a Korean-American woman; the imposter syndrome, the rage, the sadness, the frustration. She candidly and openly expresses times in her life where she now recognizes that she was acting within the parameters of White Supremacist thinking, influenced by the oppressive culture around her. She humanizes the experience of growth, atonement and educating oneself on the ways that these systems need to be refused and dismantled.

The retelling of her memories is poignant and transparent; each one seamlessly tied into the next. She speaks of countless instances in which she was subject to micro-aggressions, blatant racism and fetishization. She speaks of intergenerational trauma as a Korean-American. She speaks on the struggle of existing within expectations of conforming to the model minority stereotypes that are so often associated with Asian-Americans, and the whiplash of being deemed as “too Asian, and yet not Asian enough”.

This was a beautifully written reflection on what it means to recognize, and turn away from White Supremacist ideology. To look at these systems, infiltrate them, and change them. To bite the hand that feeds you.

In this book, Julia Lee weaves together personal narrative, history, and social criticism to paint a clear, sharp, nuanced look into coming of age as a second-generation Korean-American. She grapples with family history, racial identity, education, prejudice, and growing into a scholar/activist. One aspect of the book that is sticking with me is Lee's discovery of moving away from binary thinking in our activism as well as in our examination of ourselves. This is a compelling read with beautiful, emotional, personal voice as well as sharp criticism and reckoning. The audiobook is beautifully narrated by the author, and she does not hold back from letting us hear and feel her emotions.

Content warnings: anti-Asian racism, anti-Asian brutality, anti-Black racism, anti-Black brutality, grief, gun violence, suicide, racial slurs, self harm, colonization, sexual harassment

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to this audio ARC via Netgalley.

Biting the Hand is a memoir about Julia Lee’s life growing up in LA. I really enjoyed this audiobook as Julia reflects on parts of her life.

This will be an audio book that gets listed to again.

I really enjoyed this audiobook! The author/narrator did a great job speaking/writing with passion while also telling her stories in a professional and informative way. From her childhood experiences as a Korean-American child growing up in a low income neighbourhood surrounded by people of colour to her many years of education both as a student and a professor where she faced a variety of microaggressions and full out prejudice/racism on a regular basis. There were many interesting anecdotes and stories interspersed with information about the context (historical, cultural and otherwise as needed) as well as background information about racism and prejudice as part of the systemic issues society has and will continue to perpetuate going forward. Lee is well spoken and highly educated, but also has the natural ability as a professor to explain things in a way that is natural and easy to understand. I would highly recommend this book in audiobook format and also would be interested in reading it in a hardcopy format if I had the opportunity in the future! Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to listen to this fantastic audiobook!

Biting the Hand is a fascinating memoir about Julia Lee, a Korean-American woman in her 40s, who has lived predominantly in Los Angeles. I loved her perspective as someone who was filled with rage, but couldn't quite pinpoint the cause, because there seemed to be many. She was a teenager during the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, and frames her experience and the events well. I really appreciated her reflection on her childhood and how she perceived so many things through the lens of internalized racism, stereotypes, societal and familial expectations. As someone who has always lived in the US, her perspective and history is so different from her parents, who were subjected to war in Korea in the 1950s and emigrated to the US in the 1970s. I listened to the audiobook, which is perfectly narrated by its author. Overall, a very gripping memoir spliced with historical and local context.

Thank you Henry Holt / Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for providing this ebook/audiobook ARC.

Biting the Hand is a memoir that follows the author's experience with race as a rebellious Korean American daughter of Korean immigrants. I loved how she reflected on her thoughts and experiences and how she examined the times she was, while in the moment unknowingly, a proponent of racism as well as the times when it was directed towards her. I was also interested in the idea she wrote about the necessity of moving away from binary thinking. There is so much to be learned from Lee's memoir, and I would highly recommend the audiobook read by Lee.

4.5/5

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.

I was quite young during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. I'm ashamed to say I didn't learn about the event until Anthony Bourdain visited Koreatown. I'm sure Korean Americans look back on this area nowadays through a gentrified lens, but what was LA like back then? What is it like now?

Growing up Asian American (Julia gives an interesting take on this term) is obviously different than growing up white in the US. But it's also significantly different than growing up in Black in the US. What is this gray space? What is the model minority myth? I found myself connecting to a lot of this, which won't surprise you if you follow my reviews at all.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

🎧Audiobook Review🎧

Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America by Julia Lee

“When Julia Lee was fifteen, her hometown went up in smoke during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Julia was taught to be grateful for the privilege afforded to her. However, the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, following the murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper, forced Julia to question her racial identity and complicity. She was neither Black nor white. So who was she?

This question would follow Julia for years to come, resurfacing as she traded in her tumultuous childhood for the white upper echelon of elite academia. It was only when she began a PhD in English that she found answers—not in the Brontës or Austen, as Julia had planned, but rather in the brilliant prose of writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. Their works gave Julia the vocabulary and, more important, the permission to critically examine her own tortured position as an Asian American, setting off a powerful journey of racial reckoning, atonement, and self-discovery that has shaped her adult life.

With prose by turns scathing and heart-wrenching, Julia Lee lays bare the complex disorientation and shame that stems from this country’s imposed racial hierarchy to argue that Asian Americans must leverage their liminality for lasting social change alongside Black and brown communities.”

This was an insightful, educational memoir about Julia’s experience of never quite feeling like she fits into the binaries. She is very educated (Princeton and Harvard) and speaks about how she felt and the experiences with diversity she had in different academic setting as a professor - which I found really interesting. I highly recommend this engaging and much needed memoir. It is narrated by Julia herself and she brings so much emotion and passion to her story.

Publish date: April 18, 2023

Thanks to @netgalley, @henryholtbooks, @macmillan.audio and the author for access to this audio ARC.

I'm so thankful to have received this wonderful audiobook copy of Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America from Macmillan Audio, Julia Lee, NetGalley, and Henry Holt Books. I'm always down for consuming a wonderfully-formatted memoir that details the tricky horrors of growing up in the states as a non-white person who's used to the privileges that are allocated to this country's "ideal" citizen. Biting the Hand is set to publish on April 18, 2023, and I can't wait for more readers to get their hands on this beauty.