Ordinary Disasters by Anne Anlin Cheng Review

This memoir/collection of essays, published just last week, goes in depth about Dr. Cheng’s identity as a Taiwanese immigrant, professor, wife, mother, and cancer patient. It’s a deeply personal and relevant conversation, especially with the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes after the pandemic, certain political narratives, and the mental health crisis among Asian American youth. She ties in insights from her own experiences in academia, growing up in Taiwan, and then immigrating to the American South.

I especially loved her chapter on Disney World, and how the concept of visiting caricatures of each “country” within the park is uniquely American in its convenience and palatable nature. She also remarks on pop culture and how the rise of interest in Japanese culture—such as Marie Kondo, Hello Kitty—seems to only fit the trend because it’s cutesy. No one wants to acknowledge the ugliness of Asian American pessimism, something explored in the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, and something Professor Cheng sees in her own students at Princeton. It is especially relevant to the title: the model minority myth. If hard work doesn’t actually pay off, if the mythical “American Dream” is something you have to strive for and live for, but most never reach—if you’ll never be more than your race—what’s the point?

I also enjoyed her essay on her relationship with her white husband. The tension between her feeling of being perceived flatly as “just another Chinese woman” and her deep love for her husband; she sometimes wonders if he will ever truly understand her.

This book was a poignant, layered, and deeply emotional yet intellectual conversation about Dr. Cheng’s life—in all its facets, joys, and tribulations. Yet I feel frustration, because while it’s wonderful to read books like these and see these complex emotions and dynamics put into words, it’s all things I know in one way or another, or have experienced. I wonder when those who may not understand or know these perspectives will be reading more of these accounts than those who live it every day.

Thank you to Pantheon Books and Dr. Cheung for the gifted review copy!