Editor's Note: This review was originally published in Portland Book Review.
Educator Ellie Yang Camp’s "Louder Than the Lies" delves into the complex issues of racism, white supremacy, and imperialism from the perspective of the ever-evolving Asian American identity. Yang, drawing from her Taiwanese heritage, a significant aspect of her East Asian positionality, shares her personal experiences of feeling alienated from the dominant Black and white racial discourse. Her narrative, a blend of history, sociology, psychology, and education, resonates with the truths about the stigmas and stereotypes about Asian Americans, citing recent events and the works of researchers and academicians from various disciplines.
I engaged with the book from my perspective as a Filipino American immigrant with more than thirty years of lived experiences in racialization in the United States. I have also been on a lifelong journey of decolonization, the arduous process of unpacking the harms of racism and my complicity in an imperialist system. As an educator, Yang’s approach invites people of Asian heritage to consider ideas about race that they had not considered before. This book makes an excellent read for Asian Americans who are just waking up to their identities as racialized beings in the American context. Any writer discussing the topic of race in the post-George Floyd era would be amiss not to confront whiteness and white supremacy. Yang breaks down these concepts in ways that people without grounding in social justice can understand.
Educator Ellie Yang Camp’s "Louder Than the Lies" delves into the complex issues of racism, white supremacy, and imperialism from the perspective of the ever-evolving Asian American identity. Yang, drawing from her Taiwanese heritage, a significant aspect of her East Asian positionality, shares her personal experiences of feeling alienated from the dominant Black and white racial discourse. Her narrative, a blend of history, sociology, psychology, and education, resonates with the truths about the stigmas and stereotypes about Asian Americans, citing recent events and the works of researchers and academicians from various disciplines.
I engaged with the book from my perspective as a Filipino American immigrant with more than thirty years of lived experiences in racialization in the United States. I have also been on a lifelong journey of decolonization, the arduous process of unpacking the harms of racism and my complicity in an imperialist system. As an educator, Yang’s approach invites people of Asian heritage to consider ideas about race that they had not considered before. This book makes an excellent read for Asian Americans who are just waking up to their identities as racialized beings in the American context. Any writer discussing the topic of race in the post-George Floyd era would be amiss not to confront whiteness and white supremacy. Yang breaks down these concepts in ways that people without grounding in social justice can understand.
