“Park” is a Korean last name, not first name. She knows she's being racist, but no one ever does anything to change this. That was probably the most racist question of all time”. Well, sort of… Sometimes she wondered if the shape of his eyes effected how he saw things. Eleanor later says, “Park’s eyes got wide. She calls his mother a “dainty China person”, when she is in fact Korean. She says, “His mom looked exactly like a doll… tiny and perfect… Eleanor imagined Park’s dad, Tom Selleck, tucking his Dainty China person into his flak jacket and sneaking her out of Korea.” The comparison is supposed to be a compliment about how delicate and “perfect” Park’s mother is, but it just furthers the stereotypes that Asians are tiny and “delicate”, and that all Asians are the same. The racism Park faces should not equate to Eleanor’s hair color and weight.Įleanor often focuses on the appearances of Park and his mother, usually in a negative way. Eleanor is strange because of her red hair, and Park is “strange” because he… is Asian. In the time since this book’s debut, many readers (including myself) have realized this book contains a lot of casual racism, fetishization of Asians, and harmful stereotypes usually involving the Koreans and Korean-Americans in this story.įirstly, the author makes the two main characters out to be “strange” and “outsiders”.
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