>> Shari Werb: Hello. I'm Shari Werb. Books can offer you
a way to hear a voice and a story you otherwise never
know or a voice and a story that connects deeply,
powerfully to yours. The Library of Congress not
only ensures these voices and stories will be available
for generations to come, but connects you to
the authors themselves. Today's event will connect
you to two powerful memoirs. Cathy Park Hong is the
author of Minor Feelings, An Asian American Reckoning. And novelist Wayétu
Moore is the author of The Dragons, the
Giant, the Women. Hong, a poet, and Moore, a
novelist, wrote these memoirs out of a need to
tell their stories, to grapple with injustice
and war. They tell us about growing up,
share with us their families and friendships, and are honest about their fears
and self-doubts. Just as they challenge
us to rethink how we talk about the immigrant experience, as well as how we see
and address racism. I am delighted to welcome
both Cath Park Hong and Wayétu Moore here today
to tell us about their memoirs. Here to lead the
conversation is Rob Casper. Take it away, Rob. >> Robert Casper:
Thanks so much, Shari, and welcome to the
Art of the Memoir, a part of National
Book Festival Presents. I'm thrilled to be here today with Wayétu Moore
and Cathy Park Hong. Welcome to the library. >> Wayétu Moore: Thank you. Thank you for having me. >> Cathy Park Hong: Thank you. >> Robert Casper: Well,
the first question I wanted to ask was just about how both
of you approached these memoirs, the questions you were
grappling with, and how you came to the idea of each book. >> Cathy Park Hong:
So I didn't set out to write a traditional
memoir, and in fact, Minor Feelings I
would say is a book of essays before I'd
say it's a memoir. And it's a hybrid collection
of cultural criticism, memoir, history, oh, a dash
of theory thrown in. So I, you know, but I did,
from many years ago, you know, I would say even
ten years ago or so, I wanted to write
something personal. As a poet, you know, I made
a dramatic switch from poetry to nonfiction, and when
I was writing poetry, I always wrote in
the persona form. And it was a challenge
to myself to decide to - by making a decision
to be transparent, to write from my own life. And at first, it was going
to be a collection of poems, but I soon realized that I was,
in writing autobiographically, it was much more comfortable for
me to write in the prose form. So I began to do that, but it
was more I guess it was more - it was leaning more critical
rather than personal. And it was actually
the, you know, when after the book got
accepted by One World Press, I worked with a really fantastic
editor, Victory Matsui, who is no longer an editor. That, you know, actually
changed the book dramatically and made it more personal. Because I realized
that, you know, throughout the book,
I make an argument. You know, there are these
questions that I pose like what - is there an
Asian American consciousness? What is it? I never really seek to
answer that question, but there's a kind of, you
know, except through these kind of patches of personal stories,
and criticisms, and so forth. And I realized that it was
very important for the reader to not just have a kind
of cerebral journey, but to also have an
emotional journey, as well. So, you know, I guess like my
approach to the memoir was kind of sideways, you know, rather
than something that I - rather than a genre that
I dived into immediately. >> Wayétu Moore: Yeah, so
Cathy, you genre hopped, as well, from poetry to memoir, because I'm from
the fiction world - >> Cathy Park Hong: Mm-hmm. >> Wayétu Moore: [Inaudible] and I consider myself very much
a novelist and I don't intend to write any other
memoirs, so this was just - this was definitely an
anomalous situation. So when I think - writing in any genre I think is
there's this negotiation of the abstract and
the concrete. And for fiction, coming
from fiction, for me, you have these abstractions
in theme that you're trying to make concrete through plot. So you, for instance, would have
- so for my novel, for instance, my debut novel, the abstractions
or thematic abstractions of motherhood, and betrayal, and
nationalism, etc., colonialism. And I think I generally, when I
begin to write, I think in terms of theme first and then try to concretize those
themes through plot. And memoir's the
inverse of that. Like I have a plot. I know what happens and I'm
trying to pull abstractions from that plot that people
can potentially relate to, be inspired by, etc., etc.
And so what I did was rather than approaching it from
this is what happened, which would then lean toward
a more chronological telling of the events of my life. Is I approached as if
I were writing a novel, which is let me go - let me
lean toward the themes first. What is it that I'm
trying to say? What is it that my
story has said so far in I guess my limited
lived experience. Because another question I get
a lot, "Well, you're so young. Why are you writing a memoir?" Where people don't necessarily
understand the difference between memoir and
autobiography, but that's another conversation. And so, yes, I approached it
very much like I would a novel. I have themes of family, of,
again, nationalism, of culture, of cross-culturalism, biculturalism, motherhood,
again. What can I pull from my lived
experience and create from that? And that was my approach or
like rather than going the route where I was just
leaning on the concrete and hoping abstractions
would result in. And I essentially just
said, you know what? Let me just go my regular
route, focus on the themes, what is it that I'm
trying to say, and pull from my experience,
and hope that that rings true. >> Robert Casper: Yeah,
Wayétu, I was really interested in the way that you moved
in that penultimate section of your book to speaking in
the voice of your mother. And took on a sort of
fictionalized voice to sort of help keep the story going. But also, what you did in the
middle section of the book. There's a frame of
your leaving Monrovia and heading towards Sierra
Leone and those few weeks. But there's also so much
of your life in between that that comments on not only
those few weeks but on being, as you said, African
American, too, and sort of American culture. So maybe you could talk
about both those things and those sort of worked. >> Wayétu Moore: Yeah, sure. So the section with my
mother, so as I said, I guess to explain it, it would
be I gave myself the license to do that, but my mother also
gave me the license to do it. My decision was based on,
as I said, my interaction with my craft in more of a
fiction form than nonfiction and sort of practicing in
a way that I would a novel. Before I thought about, okay, so what are the rules
of this genre. >> Robert Casper: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. >> Wayétu Moore: But
coincidentally, my first draft of the memoir, that
section was in third person. Because I did have
some hesitancy about speaking in
my mother's voice. Because it is her story,
as well, and I'm sure that she has something that's
very profound, and full, and textured to tell about
everything that she experienced. So I had hesitancy, but I knew
that there was something missing and I went back and forth. And when I finally
let my family read it, because I didn't let anyone
read my first draft of it. The first draft was
sacred to me. Because I also knew that there's
something very complicated about memory and the way memory
functions within our genre. And so I wanted to
protect that, in a way, and so I didn't let
anyone read my first draft. It wasn't until maybe
like a third draft that I finally let
my mother read it and she's the one
who called it out. She said, "Something about
my section just doesn't - it doesn't feel the same." I said, "Well, what
do you mean?" She said, "It's not
good, Wayétu. It's not good." So we had a conversation
about, you know, my inclination to do it in first person. And I said, "Well,
I'm a bit hesitant because that's a lot
of responsibility." And she said, "No,
that's what it is. That's what you have to do. It's the right thing to do. It's the only thing to do. That's what you have to do." So once she gave me that license
and I was able to explore that section with more
freedom, that's when I came to and settled in her voice. As I've grown to know
it, as I am becoming as a mother now myself,
and so that decision, it took a lot of time. It wasn't the first
decision, because admittedly, I did have, you know,
some pause. And then, of course,
the other part of that is the hesitation
of, well, then if I'm not following
the rules of the genre, then will there be pushback as
to whether or not it is memoir. And then just the
logistics of craft. But in terms of the other
sections of the book, and going back and forth of the different
things I was able to do. I would say that I have
been writing some form of this book for
a very long time. And had been writing, so either
in journal entries, or poetry, over the course of maybe
about seven or eight years. Because when you're from a
place like Spring, Texas, because I say Liberian American, but I think even more
profound is Liberian Texan. And the town that I was raised in in Texas was very
white, very homogenous. A lot of it was Christian, very conservative,
upper middle class. And they didn't know
what, "Oh, Africa? That's so sweet. That's so nice. Like what? Tell me about it." As if I could speak for
an entire continent. And so I did feel
like, to some extent, I had been explaining
myself for my entire life. And so when that's the
case, as somebody who writes and enjoys writing, I'm
always writing some version of this story and waiting for
the right time to tell it. Like people ask me
quite a bit, "Well, how did you feel finally
releasing this piece which was so personal and it's
about your family?" And all I say is I felt free. Like here you go,
reference the memoir, reference this piece of work. So, yeah, I've been
writing parts of this book for
a very long time. Iterations of it have existed,
I would say, in journals, on my laptop for about
seven or eight years, or so. And it just culminated when I
finally made my home going trip after 25 years of being away. >> Robert Casper: Right, right. Cathy, it's not as if
you shy away from talking about your family, and
specifically, your parents, in Minor Feelings, and I wonder,
do you feel like you needed to get permission
for those sections? >> Cathy Park Hong:
The book, you know, the book is not necessarily
about - it's not about family, you know. It's about, necessarily,
it's not. It's more about, well, if it's
not really about anything, but it's about this
country from the perspective of an Asian American woman. It's about, you know, white
innocence and, you know, institutional racism
and the arts. It's about PTSD after these
kind of - the Korean War. I mean, it's just, you know, and
all of these disparate subjects that somehow kind of collect
into my sort of mosaic idea of what Asian American
consciousness is. And so I don't, you know,
so it wasn't really focused on my family, but it was almost
like I was using my own memories as a kind of rhetorical tool. Like as I was making an argument
about my - how my family, like I didn't believe in
the stories that I was told, Catcher in the Rye, or any
of the children's book, how this idea of being
Free To Be You and Me. And this idea of innocence
is something that's encoded in whiteness that I didn't
personally experience. So I felt like I had to use kind
of anecdotes of my own life. To kind of show kind
of viscerally and emotionally show the reader
why I felt a part or an outsider from this Western formation
of what childhood is. So I was able to - so
while I was able to kind of have these moments of very
personal, vulnerable moments. I could also just sort of
there was always an exit route where then I would go into the
history of, I don't know, of, you know, either the
Chinese American history, or Korean American history. Or my South, you know, or
about my South Asian friend, or I talk about Holden
Caulfield, and so forth, because it was sort
of, you know, as I wrote a module or form. But I do - and but I do also
talk about how I can't write about my mother in the book. Just because I - it's just,
first of all, she would - to write about her would
be like to devote a tome or a Marian [assumed
spelling] opera, and this book has
other - another focus. But I am more - I am
interested in, you know, I'm interested in that. And it's based on this
question by this poet, Bonga Kopel [assumed spelling],
who said, "Who is responsible for the suffering
of the mother?" And she used that question and she asked all these
different South Asian women and she gave them a
list of questions. One of them was "Who
is responsible for the suffering
of your mother?" And I was I guess I think about
that question as it relates to my mother and other
mothers from my childhood. So I think I've been thinking
about family more in - I've been in a more
focused way than I did when I wrote Minor Feelings. >> Robert Casper: Mm-hmm. Well, and that question of
permission comes up really in the chapter on
education with your friend, Erin [assumed spelling]. Where you have to kind
of deal with her story and what you can tell about
her story and her sense of privacy, shame,
what have you. >> Cathy Park Hong: Yeah. I mean, that was, yeah,
that was very tricky. And that was, you
know, and I understand. I mean, there were just a lot
of these ethical questions that don't come up when
you're writing poetry, as opposed to a memoir, right? So I wrote a story
about two of my friends. One of them who was very
either bipolar or borderline, and the doctors kept
changing their diagnosis, and she was very
unstable, very volatile. And then another friend of mine,
who I'm still friends with them, it was, at first, I was just
going to write about my friend who I'm still friends with. Because it was - it just
followed a more empowered paradigm of feminist friendship. But then I thought
it didn't feel right if I didn't include the Helen - it's not her real name
- the Helen chapter. Because we were three -
it would have been weird because we were three very close
friends who fought all the time. And I'm like I'm going to get
into all this messy territory if I do include her, and then I
did, you know, and I, you know, tried to protect her
identity as much as possible. But the other catch
was was that my friend, Erin [assumed spelling],
who I'm still friends with, I revealed something
traumatic that happened to her when she was in high school. And it was all about - and
that was so - it's so crucial to who she was in college
and her art making. And then right before I turned
my manuscript in, they said - she told me that I
wasn't allowed to use it. >> Wayétu Moore: Oh, my gosh. >> Cathy Park Hong: Yeah, and
I was like, "You said I could." And she said, "No." And she said - and
I was like, "But -" and she said, "You can't. Our friend - if you
include that scene, then we're no longer friends." So I had to take it out, but what I inserted instead
was our conversation about it. Yeah. >> Wayétu Moore: And did
that get you in hot water? >> Cathy Park Hong: Huh? >> Wayétu Moore: Did that
get you in trouble with her? >> Cathy Park Hong: Yeah. >> Wayétu Moore: Yeah. >> Cathy Park Hong:
Well, that was fine. I mean, it took her a long
time to read the essay, but when she did,
she was okay with it. >> Wayétu Moore: Yeah, good >> Cathy Park Hong: I think
her only issue was like, "I didn't say those
cheesy things." And I said, "Well,
no, you actually did." So. >> Robert Casper: Your mentioning Helen makes me
think of, Cathy, makes me think of something you said, Wayétu. You said, "It was very rare in
the Vai storytelling tradition that I heard a story that didn't
include someone disappearing or shapeshifting." >> Wayétu Moore: Mm-hmm. >> Robert Casper: To that
end, I wonder if you can talk about the figure of Satta
throughout the memoir and how you contended with her,
and her story, and your sense of wanting to connect. >> Wayétu Moore:
That's so good, because that answer is generally
an answer I give when people ask about my writing and the magical
realism, whatever that is, Afro futurism or fantasy genre. And I would not have, before
that question, considered Satta as someone who is seen
as a fantastic figure. But then I understand how she
would be perceived as one. Because you so rarely hear
about - generally, when you hear about wars within these
countries and in these contexts, it's the child soldiers
are little boys, right? And so then you hear about a
little girl, a teenage girl, in a West African
sociopolitical conflict who is saving people's families. I can certainly understand how
that relation would be made. I - Satta, to me, because
I still have not found her. Every once in a while, I will
ask my contacts on the ground, because for a couple of years,
when I would return to Liberia, I would conduct interviews
with former child soldiers. And a lot of it was
admittedly selfish. It was to make sense of what
had happened to my family and what was happening
to the families in Liberia even to this day. Because as I said, these soldiers have
just fully integrated as if nothing had
happened, right, and no accountability has
been taken or even attempted. And so I would interview these
individuals and would always try to find more answers
as to the women who were involved
in this conflict. And every conversation that I
had would always present them as larger, and larger,
and larger, and larger. Their stories that much
more unique, and beautiful, and brilliant, just
because of their absence. Like you - I would never imagine that these women would
not only form a network where they were successfully
helping people's families across the border. But some of them would
lose their lives doing so. So Satta is someone who I
thought about quite a bit. Because when I began to - began
my preparations for returning to Liberia, I knew that she
would be - she was going to be a part of the
reconciliation. Because there was so much
of my identity as a woman, a black woman in America,
that I would say like revolved around the men that
were in my life. And that's uplifting black
men, uplifting even, you know, my father, who correctly
deserves it. But I knew that with Satta's
story, there was something that - there was an
opportunity to answer to a lot of the extremist
patriarchal thinking that still exists
today in Liberia. Where women, these women
soldiers, are totally absent from the conversation, totally
absent from any negotiations of how to make it right in some
of these post-war societies. And I should say as a
caveat, it does pain me to still be thinking
of Liberia as post-war, because the war happened some
30 years ago, at this point. But people are still referring
to it as it happened last year or five years ago, and that's because there has been
no reconciliation. With Charles Taylor, his trial
at the Hague, he was convicted of war crimes that he committed in Sierra Leone,
not even in Liberia. And so because of
that, then these people who were somehow involved in
the conflict, who played a role in I guess the salvation
and their own salvation. Because when you read
stories of these conflicts, it's generally some
Western agency, some aide agency coming over, helicoptering in,
and saving the day. But there were people
on the ground. There were people
native to the soil who played just a really
pivotal, beautiful, dynamic role in their own salvation and the
salvation of their countrymen. And so I could not
tell our family story without telling Satta's
story, without digging deeper into the lives of
these women and the through line of these women. And then also interrogating
my family's role, the fact that only a few people
had access to these women. There were few of them
who would do it for free. You know, you did
have to pay them. And using that to further
dig into the complexities of that particular conflict. And which is to my point before,
I encourage and definitely hope that others who experienced this
conflict have an opportunity to tell their story, as well. Because it could sound and
feel much different from mine. >> Robert Casper: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. >> Wayétu Moore: But I say
all that to say, wow, yes. Satta was very much
supernatural. She was very much a superhero. And when I answered that
question, it was in relation to my novels, not my memoir, but
it definitely applies to her. >> Robert Casper: Just
one last question. You've talked about what writing
the memoirs have meant to you. But I wonder if you can tell us about what these
two memoirs meant to the audiences you've
read them to, to the people who talked to you about
their impact on their lives. And maybe how that's
been different than how after a poetry reading, or
after a reading of your novel, Wayétu, audience members
come up and talk to you about, you know, how much
they like your work. >> Wayétu Moore: I feel
like that's, at this point, that question, it kind of gives
me a little bit of sadness because I'm reading
to my computer screen. I've been reading to my computer
screen for the past year, you know, which is
different from the novel, which when we did
our tour - our tours, or certainly my tour,
it was so intimate. You're in these book store back
rooms and having conversations with people who very much
become a part of the story. And with the memoir,
it's been to Zoom, so a computer screen,
for the past year. And some of the questions
I've gotten, some of the questions I
hadn't, but I don't even think that I can compare the two because the platforms
have been so different. I do find, though, that of the
questions that I've received or been able to receive over
the course of the past year, there does seem to be just
a desperation for knowledge on the region, on the country. Because a lot of the
literature that comes out of that region is Nigerian
or Ghanaian. And to be fair, Nigeria has,
you know, 200 million people. Liberia has five million. So obviously, we're not
going to have that much. However, what I have found
is people are desperate just to know what is happening
outside of our 50 states
and territories. And so that's been interesting and I've been encouraging people
not only to read other writers who are Liberian who
might be published. That's Vamba Sherif,
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, who's a Liberian poet. Hawa Golakai. She's been published pretty
widely on the continent and we're fingers crossed
that she sort of breaks through in the Western
market this year. Just so she could be
- just for the purpose of being more widely read
because she deserves it. Peace Medie who she's Ghanaian
Liberian and her book came out last year - or actually, was it earlier - no,
it was last year. And so and not only
reading books like that, but then also patronizing
and getting to know African publishers, as
well, like Cassava Republic, Golden Baobab, Masobe
Books, and others. Because you will find that
variation that you're looking for in terms of the history, in terms of these unique
experiences or what's perceived as a unique experience here. I encourage people to go,
go, go and patronize some of these institutions. >> Cathy Park Hong: Well, you
know, Rob, what kind of audience that a poet gets,
so it's, you know, we cater to very
a hyper-specific and a small audience. So it was quite a difference
in terms of the kind of reception that you get. A friend, Brenda, my
friend, Brenda Shaughnessy, says it's the calm
before the calm when you publish a poetry book. But and then you publish - and then when I published
Minor Feelings, I, you know, had that same fear that it was
no one was going to read it. And, you know, except for a
few people, especially since, you know, when I
would tell people about like what are you writing
about, and I'd say, "Well, it's kind of about Asian
American identity." And their eyes would kind
of glaze over like, "Oh, of course you would
write," you know, like it's very expected,
and so forth. And which is precisely why
I took on the subject, too. It's like how can I
make this tepid subject and just explode it, in a way. And it's been, yeah,
I agree with Wayétu. It's just I've been talking to
a screen and it's really weird. And but I've definitely
there's - it's reached a much wider
readership than I thought and there have been a lot
of Asian Americans who - and not just Korean
American or East Asian and other people of color. But especially women who
have said that they felt seen and that they felt
it was a mirror. And, you know, and I - even
though I wish I could have - I could meet these readers
in person, it's really nice to get these notes, get these
messages, and they're really - it's really very - it's
been very, very humbling. It's a little weird, also. I would say that the book has
come out right when, you know, the anti-Asian hate has
been more in the media. And, you know, I think
I feel very ambivalent. I think this happens to
a lot of BIPOC writers when there's something
catastrophic that happens, suddenly book sales go up
for the writers who happen to be connected to
that catastrophe. And I'm just like, you know,
as Claudia Rankine says, we're used to thinking
of racism as a scandal. And I'm just hoping
that we will, you know, that all of this
energy or attention to Asian American stories,
or Latinx stories, or - and black stories will
just sustain itself. And really change American
literature so it's not like we're just getting our
little our time in the sun, you know, and that we're
actually, you know, we're actually changing
what the American story is. >> Robert Casper: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you,
both, for joining us virtually from different parts
of Brooklyn. We're thrilled to
feature you as part of National Book
Festival Presents in this focus on
the Art of Memoir. Cathy Park Hong, the
author of Minor Feelings, an Asian American Reckoning. And Wayétu Moore, the author of The Dragons, the
Giant, the Women. Thanks so much. Take care. >> Wayétu Moore: Thank you. >> Robert Casper: And
back to you, Shari. >> Cathy Park Hong: Thank you. >> Shari Werb: Thank you all
for that amazing conversation. And Cathy and Wayétu,
thank you for your books. For those of you watching, I
hope you will check out more of our author conversations
at loc.gov/engage. And I want to end by showing you
how our collections can deepen your experience with
Cathy and Wayétu's books, as well as lead you on your
own journey to knowledge. Check out our resource
guide to Asian American and Pacific Islander
materials, or watch some of our celebrated conversations with the African Poets
and Writers series. There's also an online overview of the library's Korean
collection for you to explore, as well as our collection
of Liberian maps and related historical
timeline all just a click away. To learn more about these and
other treasures, visit loc.gov. [ Music ]
