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Summary
Summary
An award-winning writer takes a groundbreaking look at the experience and psyche of the Asian American male. Alex Tizon landed in an America that saw Asian women as sexy and Asian men as sexless. Immigrating from the Philippines as a young boy, everything he saw and heard taught him to be ashamed of his face, his skin color, his height. His fierce and funny observations of sex and the Asian American male include his own quest for love during college in the 1980s, a tortured tutorial on stereotypes that still make it hard for Asian men to get the girl. Tizon writes: "I had to educate myself on my own worth. It was a sloppy, piecemeal education, but I had to do it because no one else was going to do it for me." And then, a transformation. First, Tizon's growing understanding that shame is universal: that his own just happened to be about race. Next, seismic cultural changes - from Jerry Yang's phenomenal success with Yahoo! Inc., to actor Ken Watanabe's emergence in Hollywood blockbusters, to Jeremy Lin's meteoric NBA rise. Finally, Tizon's deeply original, taboo-bending investigation turns outward, tracking the unheard stories of young Asian men today, in a landscape still complex but much changed for the Asian American man.
Author Notes
Tomas Alexander Tizon was born in Manila, the Philippines on October 30, 1959. He moved to Los Angeles, California with his family in 1964. He received a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Oregon and a master's degree in journalism from Stanford University in 1986, which was also the year he joined The Seattle Times. In 1997, he shared a Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting with Eric Nalder and Deborah Nelson for articles about problems facing a Department of Housing and Urban Development program to help Native Americans build homes. He was later the Seattle bureau chief at The Los Angeles Times. He left The Los Angeles Times in 2008. In 2011, he began teaching at the University of Oregon in Eugene and writing freelance articles for national publications including The Atlantic. His memoir, Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self, was published in 2014. It documented his insecurities and alienation as a Filipino-American. He dead on March 23, 2017 at the age of 57.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this investigation into Asian masculinity, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tizon offers a well-paced, engaging combo of history, memoir, and social analysis. Beginning with a pilgrimage to Cebu in the Philippines, where the conquering European explorer Magellan was killed by the Mactanese, Tizon recounts his troubled past growing up in an America that belittled and erased the complexities of his Asian manhood, and the effect it had on his psyche and his immigrant family ("My parents' adulation of all things white and Western... was the engine of their self-annihilation"). He interweaves stories of Asian men forgotten or ignored by history, such as Zheng He, a 15th-century Chinese admiral who sailed around the world without the bloodlust of the Europeans who came after, as well as examinations of American attitudes toward Asian men as seen in films such as Harold and Kumar. Passages on self-imposed isolation and attempts to hide or mock his Asianness are visceral and painful. Tizon's skill as a feature reporter serves the book well, producing a narrative that moves fluidly between subjects, settings, and gazes. Agent: Paul Bresnick, Paul Bresnick Literary Agency. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
This hybrid memoir-history, written compellingly by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and professor Tizon, moves back and forth and all around in the history of yellow men and women the author (a Filipino), in particular, and all those who have come to be lumped into the politically correct category of Asian. Why are Asian women hot and Asian men not? How to make a white world understand the concept of wen wu ( the containment rather than the use of power ), which Westerners view as wimpiness and servitude? Growing up with U.S. culture portraying dim and unassertive yellow men on TV (e.g., on Bonanza) and in films (where the Asian guy never gets the girl), Tizon launches on a personal and historical exploration. From the yellow peril (WWII) to Yellow Fever (e.g., blogs about Asian women's sexiness) to the yellow tornado (contemporary Asian sports and business stars), impressions are changing. And here, along with eye-opening information about such forgotten figures as the much-loved Chinese warrior-thinker Zheng He (a mid-1400s explorer), Tizon portrays his color-tinged youth, young adulthood, and life now in deeply felt, extensively researched, and question-filled prose.--Kinney, Eloise Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THERE'S NOTHING SUBTLE or coy or particularly evocative about the title of "Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self," a memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Tizon. In fact, the title is so straightforward that when I was asked to write this review, I felt vaguely offended by the idea that my editor would push such an obvious identity-politics project on me, perhaps believing that I, by dint of being "Asian-American," must therefore have some special insight into Tizon and this search for his Asian self. I am 20 years younger than Tizon and grew up in snooty college towns and attended schools where I was taught that there was a hierarchy of race writing. The immigrant experience was not enough in itself, and when I read the self-evident title of Tizon's book, I flashed back to a fiction workshop in Columbia's M.F.A. program and a professor who told me that the book I was working on - a book much like Tizon's - could "definitely be published," but wondered if there was anything I could do to elevate it into something more "interesting." I recognized the code immediately - anything labeled "the immigrant experience" would be considered earnest and déclassé, and would therefore need to be gussied up in fashionable literary frills. For the next year, I wrote bad evocations of Lydia Davis, Lome Moore, Barthelme and Borges. My protagonists, God help them, became whiter and whiter. I am happy to report that Tizon's memoir is not afflicted with the need to be "interesting," nor does it suffer from some larger neurosis about its place in the history of "race writing." It is not a fancy book, nor is it, in any way, tied to any current literary moment. Instead, "Big Little Man" is an unflinchingly honest, at times beautifully written, often discomforting examination of Tizon's remarkable, yet thoroughly relatable, life. The subtitle - "In Search of My Asian Self" - despite its lack of nuance, is accurate. This is Tizon's very own wormhole. We see a young Tizon immigrate to the United States from the Philippines in 1964 with his family, who had to borrow money for the flight. We follow him as the Tizons move from Los Angeles to Seattle to the South Bronx and eventually to Umatilla, Ore. We witness the humiliations of his childhood, which included sleeping with a clothespin over the bridge of his nose to unflatten it and make it look more mestizo. This sort of brutal cosmetic therapy did not stop at the nose. The young Tizon hung from trees to stretch out his vertebrae and took protein supplements to help him grow, rubbed oil on his eyelids and put masking tape on his lips to make them thinner. "None of it worked," he says of his nightly attempts to look whiter. "The mirror mocked me. The clay of my face would never change." And yet, "Big Little Man" is not a memoir that's particularly interested in excavating every bit of the past, nor is it a Proustian project that examines how we remember and why. There is no real narrative through-line - the scenes from life instead function as pegs for historical discussions of the depiction of Asian-Americans in Hollywood, pop-anthropological theories about Asian sexuality and, of course, Jeremy Lin. The conclusion Tizon draws out of these expository sections is always the same - the Asian male has been made to feel inferior, both sexually and morally. Sexual repression breeds self-loathing, which, in turn, boils itself down into unctuous, violent anger. To illustrate that point, Tizon dedicates an eyebrow-raising number of pages to his thoughts on penises, the stereotypes about different penises and how American assumptions about Asians and their small penises have emasculated generations of young Asian-American males. His obsession with penises is so consuming that one must conclude the title "Big Little Man" is also a phallic reference. This obsession, however, is not random or perverse or solipsistic - Asian males are obsessed with their penises in a way that shapes our post-pubescent social interactions, and it's always struck me as odd, although certainly not surprising, that the shelves of memoirs and loosely autobiographical novels written by Asian -American men have so rarely addressed this issue. An honest book written by an Asian male with the subtitle "In Search of My Asian Self" cannot shy away from this subject, and while some might find all the penis talk distasteful or perhaps alienating, let's remember that "Big Little Man" is a book by an Asian-American male that attempts to explain his particular generation of Asian-American males. And although this sort of "I explain myself" story has largely fallen out of fashion in the publishing industry for a number of reasons - mostly because we seem to have reached a point where the simple evocation of a life as an outsider is no longer enough, no matter how sharply written or well told - Tizon's honesty, in itself, feels refreshing and oddly new. AT TIMES, TIZON substitutes personal reflection for historical context - he is a journalist, after all - and if there is a criticism to be made about "Big Little Man," it's that Tizon, in his effort to ground everything in empirical fact, sometimes runs a bit too far afield. He plays a game of associations wherein every great historical Asian man stands as proof of the virility and creative ingenuity of the modern AsianAmerican man. For example, in a lengthy discussion of the perceptions surrounding Asian men and their height, Tizon points out that Ho Chi Minh, despite standing 4 feet 11, was no beta male. A discussion of Jeremy Lin falls flat in a similar way. In these sections, Tizon tries too hard to convince the reader of something that should already be obvious, and, in doing so, turns an intensely personal examination into a heavy-handed lesson that tells us little else other than stereotypes are dumb. "Big Little Man" is ultimately saved by a different sort of historicity, one that comes not so much from his life story, but more from the placement of his book within the moving tide of Asian-American literature. It's fair to say that "Big Little Man" is something of a relic. It certainly lacks the meta-angst of "Paper Tigers," Wesley Yang's award-winning essay in New York magazine. And although the book has its raunchy moments, Tizon isn't trying to present himself as everything the model minority is not. It's also fair to say that it reads like a memoir written by a lifelong journalist. The lines that connect Tizon's experiences to the greater "themes" of the book are simple and easy to recognize. (Even the idea of a "theme" as a clear concept communicated through narrative or exposition feels anachronistic, but this, more than any book I've read recently, is one that states its arguments both clearly and loudly.) Each chapter comes with its own nut graf. But to equate clarity and sincerity with obsolescence would be a mistake. Tizon's book feels fresh and new because it was exactly the sort of book that would not have been published 10 or 20 or perhaps even five years ago. And while those who believe in "interesting" "race writing" might find "Big Little Man" to be a bit too on-the-nose or polemical or easy in its conclusions, those of us who deal with a similar psychodrama should feel a sense of great recognition and relief when we read Tizon's searingly honest self-exploration. He provides the context, and in this case, the context is more interesting than the performance. 'None of it worked. The mirror mocked me. The clay of my face would never change.'
Kirkus Review
A Filipino writer explores his racial identity.Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tizon (Journalism/Univ. of Oregon) emigrated with his family from the Philippines in 1964, "yearning for an equal share of paradise." Achieving the American dream, they quickly discovered, required them to reject their language, culture and heritage. "Our early years in America," Tizon writes, "were marked by relentless self-annihilation." Like his parents, he came to believe that Americans were "strong and capable" and Filipinos, "weak and incapable and deserving of mockery." Facial features and body size underscored weakness: "Americans did seem to melike a different species, one that had evolved over generations into supreme behemoths. Kings in overalls. They were living proof of a basic law of conquest: victors are better." As a child, Tizon saw Asians stereotyped as submissive, primitive, treacherous and indistinguishable from one another, lumped together racially as Oriental or, more derisively, yellow. He was especially sensitive to assumptions about Asian males, often portrayed in movies and on TV as servants or the butts of jokes; Hollywood insisted that Asian male power conform "to known clichssage, brainiac, martial artist." Never was a male depicted as a desirable romantic hero. Similarly, Asian women were seen as childlike and "more pliant, more sensual, more sensitive and attentive to the needs of the stronger sex." Asian women's attitudes toward Asian males reflected mainstream culture; most Asian women, Tizon noted despondently, wanted to date and marry whites. The author celebrates some substantial changes in Americans' attitudes as Asians have become more prominent in sports, entertainment and mass media. He came to understand, also, that feeling shame and self-doubt is widely shared: One friend was ashamed of being too tall, another of being too smart, and some told him "in all seriousness that they were ashamed of being white. They felt guilty, undeserving." Making peace with one's identity, Tizon concludes, transcends race.A deft, illuminating memoir and cultural history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
This book presents the complicated, difficult, but evolving Western perception of Asian manhood, as observed and lived by one Asian man. Filipino American and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tizon adeptly weaves social and political history, sociological observation, and cultural analysis into confessional memoir. Alongside his own poignant experiences, the author relates his observations of others' responses to Asian men, considers the perils and promise of being Asian in America, and reports on sex workers and arranged unions, the portrayal of Asians in movies, and the little-known story of the great Chinese explorer Zheng He. The author unpacks the Chinese ideal of "wen wu," which maintains that manliness is equally physical and cerebral. He catalogs damaging stereotypes and pervasive assumptions about Asian men: inscrutable, effeminate, polite, brainy, exotic, less than sexually desirable, and little-always little, despite empirical evidence of the increasing height of people from stable, affluent Asian nations. The title is taken from a commentator's description of boxer Pacquiao, upon his takedown of Oscar De La Hoya, as a "big little fighter." VERDICT Bracketed by two trips to the impoverished province of Cebu in the Philippines, where explorer Ferdinand Magellan met his end and boxer Pacquiao gives hope, Tizon's candid journey into the shifting and multiplying definitions of manliness and the masculine ideal is revelatory and sobering.-Janet -Ingraham Dwyer, State Lib. of Ohio, Columbus (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 What is the knocking at the door in the night? -- D. H. Lawrence When I was twenty-nine, I flew to the island of Cebu in the Philippines to watch a fight. I arrived on a sweltering morning with nothing but books and some clothes in an overnight bag, which I threw into the trunk of the first taxi that stopped for me. It was a white clunker with the words Love Doll Coach painted in red cursive on the passenger door just above a phone number and a smaller inscription that read Ride Nice In Paradise. The driver's name was Bobby. For the next two mornings, Bobby greeted me with "Morning, Sir Alex." "No need to call me 'sir,'" I'd say. "Yes, sir, Sir Alex," he'd assure me. He was not being funny. Bobby went about his work with robotic swiftness and a prefab smile that appeared on cue. He was eager but detached at the same time, with no interest in making real contact. I never felt at ease around him. I wanted to be friends; he wanted to be my servant. I would learn that his was the prescribed demeanor for all service workers in the Philippines. Saying "sir" two or three times in a single sentence was not considered excessive. Chronic obsequiousness had seeped into the national character during four centuries of colonial rule. Bobby also chain-smoked, which no doubt contributed to turning the whites of his eyes crayon red. He had greasy misshapen hair and grimy fingernails as long as guitar picks. He was not a pretty sight in the morning. But I knew no one else, and there were so many other things to rest my eyes upon. Cebu is one of the Philippines' larger islands, a long skinny outcrop of sand and forest in the central region known as the Visayas. From the air, the island resembles the profile of a high diver in mid-dive: from the tip of the toes in the north to the fingertips in the south is 120 miles. The thickest part, around the trunk, is twenty-five miles across. If the plunging diver were facing east, the capital -- Cebu City -- would be right near the belly button, which was where Bobby drove me on that first day. It was an hour's drive in heavy traffic from the airport. To get to my hotel, the Love Doll Coach wound through a labyrinthine maze of crowded neighborhoods, the masa made up of brown bodies in scant attire pressed closely together and yet somehow also moving like a river. Up we chugged on climbing narrow streets lined with rickety storefronts, their corrugated steel awnings bent and rusting out. Freshly butchered goats hung from hooks, blood still dripping from open mouths. Women in shorts and flip-flops with baskets of fruit on their heads walked past with small children running in orbits around sinewy legs. I rolled down my window and was instantly smothered in air thick with exhaust and something else, what was it -- sweat? The smell of toil. Occasionally an ocean breeze cut through, and a hint of wet sand and palm trees. The scent of mangoes from somewhere. It was all new to my Americanized senses. I was awash in newness, as if I had landed on a never-discovered continent. And yet it was not my first time here. I was born on one of these islands. My blood, with its tinctures of Malay and Spanish and Chinese, came from the same pool as those of the masses we passed on the road. At age four I was brought by my parents to America, a land where people did not look too kindly on a groveler, for instance, anybody who said "sir" three times in a single sentence. I recognized Bobby because I had a little bit of Bobby inside me, and I didn't like it much. Becoming an American meant I had to hate the groveler and exorcise him from my soul. It was hard work, becoming an American, and I felt I'd succeeded for the most part. Yet I was not "all-American." I could never be that. Most of us, when imagining an all-American, wouldn't picture a man who looked like me. Not even I would. You would have to take my word for it that more than a few times in my life I looked in a mirror and was startled by the person looking back. I could go a long time feeling blithely at home, until a single glance at my reflection would be like a slap on the back of the head. Hey! You are not of this land. Certainly during my growing-up years in America, many people, friends and strangers, intentionally and not, helped to embed in me like a hidden razor blade the awareness of being an outsider. I remember an encounter with a fellow student at JHS 79 in the Bronx, where my family lived in the 1970s. I was about thirteen. My school was just off the Grand Concourse on 181st, a five-story brick building with bars over all the windows and dark clanging stairwells that might as well have been back alleys. Some stairwells you did not dare travel alone, but I was new and didn't know better. One afternoon in one of these stairwells, an open hand with five impossibly long fingers fell hard against my chest and stopped me in my tracks. "What you supposed to be, motherfukka?" the owner of the hand said. "Wha -- ?" I stammered. "Are you deaf, boy? I said, What you supposed to be?" The owner of the hand was a tall black guy, Joe Webb, who turned out to be the oldest and biggest member of my seventh-grade class, a man among boys. He was one of those guys whose muscles bulged like rocks sewn under skin, whose glare conveyed the promise of apocalyptic violence. "Are you a Chink , a Mehi-kan ? What?" Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other Latinos made up the majority of students at the school. There were some whites and a handful of Chinese and Taiwanese. I was the only Filipino in the school, and a lot of students like Joe had never met one and knew nothing about the Philippines. I told him what I thought I was. "You don't look American, bitch," he said. He eventually let me pass after I gave him the change from my pocket, which I would learn was really what he was after. Moving around the school meant paying certain tolls. Sweet scary Joe Webb. We ended up sitting next to each other in English, and he would copy off my test answers with my implicit consent. After he had found me acceptable six months into the school year, he became my friend and protector for the rest of my time at JHS 79. Sometime later that year, when another kid tried to shake me down in the very same stairwell, Joe loomed over him with those murderous eyes and long fingers rolled up into fists and the other kid melted into the darkness whence he came, never to bother me again. Joe's original query was a question I've been asked in various, usually more tactful ways ever since I could remember. What you supposed to be? From where on this planet did you come? What are you? The person in the mirror was the color of coffee with two tablespoons of cream. The face was wide with hair so black it sometimes appeared blue. The eyes were brown and oval, the nose broad, the lips full. A face that would have blended naturally with those I saw on the street that morning from the back seat of the Love Doll Coach. Excerpted from Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self by Alex Tizon All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
1 Killing Magellan | p. 1 |
2 Land of the Giants | p. 23 |
3 Orientals | p. 43 |
4 Seeking Hot Asian Babes | p. 63 |
5 Babes, Continued | p. 81 |
6 Asian Boy | p. 93 |
7 Tiny Men on the Big Screen | p. 111 |
8 Its Color Was Its Size | p. 129 |
9 Getting Tall | p. 143 |
10 Wen Wu | p. 159 |
11 Yellow Tornado | p. 177 |
12 "What Men Are Supposed to Do" | p. 197 |
13 "One of Us, Not One of Us" | p. 209 |
14 Big Little Fighter | p. 223 |
Author's Note | p. 245 |
Acknowledgments | p. 249 |
Selected Sources | p. 251 |