The Role Reversal of R.F. Kuang’s 'Yellowface'

The Asian American literary canon has always consisted of works about Asian authors’ insecurities around white people. The Joy Luck Club author and Asian American literature’s fairy godmother Amy Tan once wrote a nonfiction story titled “Fish Cheeks.” In it, she describes how her 14-year-old self was embarrassed over her parents’ Chinese cultural traditions and food when her crush, a boy that was “as white as Mary in the manger,” came over for Christmas dinner. “Fish Cheeks” describes a desire to become white or be accepted by white people, a desire that summed up the sentiment of many minority authors in America during that era. But those tropes have faded away.