The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker

by Eric Liu

Beyond black and white, native and alien, lies a vast and fertile field of human experience. It is here that Eric Liu, former speechwriter for President Clinton and noted political commentator, invites us to explore.

In these compellingly candid essays, Liu reflects on his life as a second-generation Chinese American and reveals the shifting frames of ethnic identity. Finding himself unable to read a Chinese memorial book about his father's life, he looks critically at the cost of his own assimilation. But he casts an equally questioning eye on the effort to sustain vast racial categories like “Asian American.” And as he surveys the rising anxiety about China's influence, Liu illuminates the space that Asians have always occupied in the American imagination. Reminiscent of the work of James Baldwin and its unwavering honesty, The Accidental Asian introduces a powerful and elegant voice into the discussion of what it means to be an American.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Asian American, Race, Biography, Essays, Asia

206 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cried while reading this. Not because the stories were too sad, nor because his writing was too beautifully fluid. I cried because for the last few months, I have been failing to articulate and reason about being a child of immigrant parents and now I have finally found someone who has expressed these sentiments in a way that I can properly share with others. This is a moving and insightful read, whether you identify as Asian or not.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eric Liu is a first generation Chinese American who was a speechwriter for Bill Clinton and an obvious high achiever. In this thoughtful series of essays, he explores everything from assimilation to ethnic roots to intermarriage to Chinatowns, real and virtual.

What impressed me most about this book is that he never, ever provides easy answers or pat views. Constantly examining his own inner life, Liu shows just how complicated the issues of ethnicity, Americanism and assimilation are.

So, for instance, when he was a teenager in upstate New York, he found it very important to hang out with students who were safely rebellious pranksters, to defy the stereotype of the goodie two shoes Asian kid, and remembers with chagrin that he also made fun of an earnest, high achieving Indian American girl, and then reflects that both of them were undoubtedly seen by others as Asian nerd kids.

One of his most poignant sections is about visiting his grandmother Po Po in New York's Chinatown, where she came to live after years in Taiwan, and where he found himself with all the mixed feelings of a successful young Asian American who could barely speak the language, whose grandmother made him a huge feast every time he stopped by, and who would hug him fiercely as he left to say, "I wish I had wings so I could fly to where you live!" and yet never left the confines of Chinatown.

This is more than an analysis of being Asian American. It is a fundamental exploration of how we form our identities and our connections to our pasts.

[Lilian Kong · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal read. I underestimated the complexity and clarity that Liu has manifested into his memoir. The book reminds me that race and heritage are but a mix of contradictions -- we yearn to embrace our roots, but escape its limitations. We learn to assimilate into yet distinguish ourselves from society, to see ourselves as separate from and one with our racial identity. We never fully know who we are.
At one point near the end of the book, Liu's language struck into my bones. He compared his explorations as an accidental Asian to the experience of cooking -- you must start from a concrete recipe (knowing your roots and ethnic heritage), but as time goes on, the recipe will fade, and you will only use it as a foundation for your own culinary creations. Liu uses precise logic but is not afraid to venture beyond it into the wide array of contradictions that race itself is inevitably comprised of. His memoir is intimately personal yet refreshingly universal as well. The language is clear and straightforward; the simplicity of his thoughts and stories touches me still.
I am so glad I found this book.

[Kyla · Rating 2 out of 5]

It seems like people enjoy this book in proportion to the amount of Liu's experience they can identify with. I wanted to like it more than I did because of particular passages, like the letter he recreates in his father's voice. I could have given five stars to that book for that. I can't believe how accurately he captured an ESL parent whose first language was Cantonese--"Be careful with the cold weather that's approaching fast," "We are so behind in handling our mails," and "All for now. Take care. Mom say Hi." So great. I shared a laugh with my mother over this. It's not often that writers touch upon family experiences I understand immediately. Some questions have never occurred to me until Liu brought them, like why did my mom keep her Chinese name? This is why the book was valuable to me, more valuable than some novels that I enjoyed more.

But--I'm speculating here--Liu's prose holds him back from a wider appeal. To be more specific, the amount of personality that it did or didn't reveal. It lumbers, asks too many rhetorical questions, uses familiar (i.e. cliched) sentence and rhetorical approaches, and it sags without enough levity or conviction to buoy it up. I even found a subject/verb agreement mistake. I don't think the writing shows enough of Liu's humanity--he's kind of almost there on the page. Maybe it's his experience as a speechwriter or his own uncertainty about the chosen topics (New Jews in particular shows the writer's hesitation) that causes him to seem apologetic. I can't make myself completely annoyed--I believe in the importance of what he wrote--but I think he could have done it better justice.

[Abbie Chem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Struggling with how I feel about this book. Some of my frustration is precisely the problem at the heart of what Liu is critiquing—my experience, my beliefs are not always aligned with Liu’s, and yet, I want it to be a perfect representation. In any case, some moments I felt he was describing precisely how I feel and at others I felt he was hopelessly naive. I suppose that’s the beauty and trouble of using a monochrome lens to view any text, and the particular danger that works by written by ‘minority’ voices face. Anyway, I’m glad I read it; one more point of light shining on liminal spaces is always a welcome one, I think.

[Matthew Sun · Rating 4 out of 5]

a lovely little book of essays. some of them were far too short, others were borderline incoherent; perhaps it is Liu's career as a speechwriter that has made him more likely to end abruptly on a pretty sentence than elaborate his thinking.

but ultimately this book has quite a bit of personal resonance for me - my mom recommended it to me, which was surprising, given that we differ significantly in our political orientations & the media we prefer to consume. but I ended up really enjoying it! Liu's background is the closest to my own out of any memories that I've read, and his tendencies towards self-critique, ambivalence towards his identity, and suspicion of identity politics are all somewhat relatable. I found Liu's hopefulness in the American liberal project uplifting, if a bit cliche.

I'd be curious how this compares to The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang. Given that this was published in 1999 but still held so many parallels to today (Liu's discussion of anti-Asian hate crimes rising after the "Chinese money scandal" is eerily similar to events following COVID-19), I wonder if Kang's book will show progress (or a lack thereof) since Liu was writing his.

whatever the case, reading this book made me feel a little less alone. I'm sure I'll be returning to it in the future :)

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really wanted to like this book - unfortunately Liu's writing style put me off. His career as a former speech writer for President Clinton shows through overwrought metaphors, hackneyed cliches and an overly earnest style of persuasive writing. The effort (and anxiety?) behind his writing is apparent, and good writing never feels that way. Did he mention he went to Yale?? Oh yes, I think he did, at every possible opportunity in this book...

Best parts of this book were his memories of his father, and of visiting his grandmother in New York's Chinatown, which were standout pieces of memoir. Would have enjoyed this book much more as an autobiography / memoir, without the stand alone "essays" on Asian American identity, which feel forced and unconvincing.

Read the family memoirs, skip the rest!

[Serene Kuramarohit · Rating 1 out of 5]

Outdated.

Lim achieved conventional success as an Asian American in a predominantly white space, because he yearns to assimilate, to lean into whiteness. But ultimately doesn’t see a problem with this. He also predicts the term “Asian American” will become obsolete in the near future. Yeah right.

[Anya · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a weird experience to read reflections a friend’s dad had about passing on his heritage to your friend before your friend even existed.... those were my favorite parts of the book!

[JKC · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to make of this book. Parts of it were really useful and then other parts were like, whoa, yikes. For instance, I'm not sure if the extensive sections comparing Jewish people to Asian Americans are "okay" or not - I wonder what Jewish people think of these sections. I'm just not sure if my sort of timid response was due to the conditioning received that insists we not allow any kind of off-color remarks - or what. Perhaps these are very valid and unusually insightful comments of a type that we don't get often. Also keep in mind this book is old. Published in 1998. I am sure that this author, who remains active, would have many updates to add now.

Something weird and again, I don't know why it bothered me, exactly, was that this was written when the author was 29 years old. I feel that is not old enough to write this kind of book. Weird bias, I know. Heck, not old enough to have the power that he had in a position, for instance, where he wrote for the then-President. But the thing is, it reads as if the author was 40 when he wrote it. He sounds old. LOL. Something about his personality, I guess. So does that then make this book, his voice, worth paying attention to at the particular time and age it was written? He seems to have done his research. He has a vast array of quotes from widely varied other authors and researchers. He's clearly put some thought into it although the book is part his own reckoning with his own upbringing and own comfort zone in regards to his "Asian Americanness", so it's in large part personal and his view thereof is definitely unique. He has some protests against the concept of Asian Americanness that I think are important to consider - albeit he might have changed his mind by now as this grouping of people has evolved and changed.

In summary, I'm on the fence with this book. Also it went on a bit. I quit a few pages towards the end. I just didn't think it had anything further to offer me that I couldn't live without.

[Jerome Hsiang · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I agree with his central argument that the Asian-American identity construct is wholly illusory and doctrinally fragile, I'm not convinced that it will fade away within our generation. No. So long as America continues to be obsessed with the artificial concept of race, even if "Asian-Americans" reject the label, the rest of society will likely stubbornly cling to the idea of a pan-Asia identity. Internalizing the dominant group's classification regime, the outsider legitimizes the very label it so desperately seeks to shake. Liu would do well to acknowledge the aspects of identity that is created by external forces, rather than assuming internal ideological and identity politics rule the day.

[Ruel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful collection of essays on identity and race. Eric Liu asks good rhetorical questions about the ongoing change in American identity and even though this book is over 15 years old, the questions are still valid today. Liu, a former speechwriter for President Clinton, is an intelligent writer who deftly handles the race card from a variety of angles and perspectives. From start to finish, I was compelled by his exploration of second generation Asian American/Pacific Islander identity issues.

[Owen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ah yes, how I remember this book. It was through a critique of this book that I explored for the first time the conflation of success/power with whiteness and identifications with whiteness that belie an underlying self-hatred. Nothing remarkable here, other than really bad prose.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book from my college days that I didn't finish reading for whatever class it was for. I appreciate his viewpoint, though it was somewhat self-indulgent (but what memoirist writer isn't, sometimes?). I rolled my eyes a couple times at the phrasing of some of his sentences and the way they were "supposed to" pull emotion out of people. He does make some interesting inquiries for the time this book was written and also at the age in which he wrote it. From my understanding, he was pretty young when he wrote this book--29 or 30 years old.

I looked him up on Wikipedia and listened to part of a TED Talk he did. I also saw that he's no longer married to the woman he mentions quite a bit in this book. I wonder what happened? And he also doesn't seem to have kids, who he also mentioned hopefully throughout the book. Unless they just aren't mentioned on his Wikipedia page. His previous wife's name isn't mentioned either, just his current wife. So it's interesting to me to hear in this book all his hopefulness in passing down Chinese traditions to his children who could've been part Jewish (first wife) also and seeing that it never happened the way he thought it might. And that's how life happens sometimes. We have aspirations and loves for a time in our lives, but since we are ever-evolving as individuals, those change with the times. And that's okay.

“My mother says that Baba’s Chinese, actually, was first-rate, as good as that of any Confucian gentleman-scholar. This doesn’t surprise me, considering his linguistic aptitude and all the time he spent as a boy reading classic Chinese texts. Even to my untrained eye, the quick and elegant strokes of his calligraphy reveal just how supple a material this language was in his hands. I imagine Baba took great pride in his talent. I wonder, then, why he never insisted that I be able to read the Chinese canon—alas, that I be able to read even a Chinese menu.” pg. 18

“I wish he had. Today, I am far from bilingual. In written Chinese, I am functionally illiterate; in spoken Chinese, I am 1.5-lingual at best, more suited to following conversations than joining them. True, some of the things that come hardest to non-native Mandarin speakers—an ear for the four different tones, the ability to form certain sounds—come easily to me, because I’ve heard the language all my life. I also, as a result, have an instinctive feel for the proper construction of Chinese sentences. What I don’t have, alas, is much of a vocabulary. I can sense that thinking in Chinese yields a unique, ineffable way of perceiving the world. I can sense how useful Chinese is for filling the interstitial spaces of English. But I sense these things and express them only as a child might, since I have, really, only a child’s mastery of Chinese.” pg. 19-20

“What he did with his name is a good example. Unlike some of his Chinese immigrant peers, my father never took on an ‘American’ first name like Charlie or Chet. His concession to convention was to shorten ‘Chao-hua’ to ‘Chao’ and to pronounce his surname as loo instead of leeoo—so that to the white world, he was, phonetically, chow loo. I suppose that still sounds pretty foreign to many people (including his own mother). But by carrying himself as if the name ‘Chao Liu’ was as American as ‘Chuck Lewis,’ he managed, in effect, to make it so.” pg. 21

“Where my father seemed to have an endless reserve of inner strength and self-knowledge, I have but an echoing well.” pg. 30

“Thus it is that I have been described as a ‘honorary white,’ by other whites, and as a ‘banana,’ by other Asians. Both the honorific and the epithet take as a given this idea: to the extent that I have moved away from the periphery and toward the center of American life, I have become white inside. Some are born white, others achieve whiteness, still others have whiteness thrust upon them. This, supposedly, is what it means to assimilate.” pg. 34-35

“The irony is that in working so duteously to defy stereotype, I became a slave to it. For to act self-consciously against Asian ‘tendencies’ is not to break loose from the cage of myth and legend; it is to turn the very key that locks you inside. What spontaneity is there when the value of every act is measured, at least in part, by its power to refute a presumption about why you act? The typical Asian I imagined, and the atypical Asian I imagined myself to be, were identical in this sense: neither was as much a creature of free will as a human being ought to be.” pg. 51-52

“Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I wish for a society without race. At bottom, I consider myself an identity libertarian. I wish for a society that treats race as an option, the way white people today are able to enjoy ethnicity as an option. As something cost-free, neutral, fluid. And yet I know that the tendency of race is usually to solidify: into clubs, into shields.” pg. 65

“The dream of a nation-race called Asian America makes the most sense if you believe that the long-discredited ‘melting pot’ was basically replaced by a ‘quintuple melting pot.’ This is the multicultural method at its core: liquefy the differences within racial groups, solidify those among them. It is a method that many self-proclaimed Asian Americans, with the most meliorative of intentions, have applied to their own lives. They have thrown the chink and the jap and the gook and the flip into the same great bubbling cauldron. Now they await the emergence of a new and superior being, the Asian American. They wish him into existence. And what’s troubling about this, frankly, is precisely what’s inspiring: that it is possible.” pg. 71

“To put it simply: the Asian American identity as we now know it may not last another generation. Which makes doubters like me grow more doubtful—and more hopeful. There was something about the creation of this race, after all, that embodied the spirit of the times: compensatory, reactive, consumed with what Charles Taylor calls ‘the politics of recognition.’ There is something now about the mutation of the race that reflects a change in that spirit. If whiteness was once the thesis of American life, and colored cults of origin the antithesis, what remains to be written is the synthesis. From the perspective of my children and their children, from the perspective, that is, of those who will be the synthesis, it may seem that ‘Asian American’ was but a cocoon: something useful, something to outgrow. And in this way, the future of the race may reflect the future of race itself. A future beyond recognition.” pg. 83

“In the popular imagination, Chinatown is not so much a place as it is a metaphor—an ideograph—for all the exotic mystery of the Orient. We don’t simply visit Chinatown; we believe in it, as surely as we believe in the ghetto or the suburb. We imbue its every peculiarity with meaning and moral import.
The Chinatown Idea holds that the people who live there should not deviate one stroke from the way of ‘old China.’ Unless we tell them to.” pg. 95

“I tell myself that I recognize their eyes: they are from Chinatown. Eyes that speak of bending to the world, not bending it. Eyes weathered by a knowledge of limits. Existential, unburdened by false hopes, content with the smallness of things. Then a thought occurs to me: perhaps these men are not tourists at all but drifters, migrants, desperate dreamers. I look more closely. Now I am not sure what their eyes say.” pg. 105

“For much of this country’s history, Asians were distant enough or few enough to serve as the perfect Manichaean scapegoats, a most necessary Evil. Asians were a monochrome screen, upon which any fear could be projected; against which heterogenous assortments of people could magically become ‘white’ or ‘American’ or ‘Western.’ In the iconography of race in this century, as the historian John Dower recounts, there have generally been two states of existence for Asians: They could be subhuman (rodents, insects). They could be superhuman (monsters, machines). Either way, they were an invading force, a swarm.” pg. 135

“Perhaps when I protest that Chineseness is a mere mirage, I protest too much. Perhaps there is a there there. Someday, when a child of mine dares me to look, perhaps I will find it.” pg. 151

“The Jews assimilated, we know: became American. But America assimilated too: became Jewish. You could write a book about the Jewish influence on the cultural and social idiom, but then, you would only be writing a book about twentieth-century America.” pg. 171

“But are customs ever enough? Customs alone are mere symbols, distillations, as distinct from cultural truth as water is from vapor. We will need language also. We will need it centrally. For it is in the sound of the language, the aspirates, the curling of the tongue, the mode of thought that the grammar demands, that this phantom I call Chineseness will truly take form—if it ever will.” pg. 185

[Nicole Means · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although Eric Liu wrote this book nearly 20 years ago, his work is, now more than ever, requires reading for all American citizens. The concept of race and its power are a fictitious ideology that promotes a binary existence. Liu’s message of how the divisiveness of race impacts our society is one that we, as a society, must address through open discourse. Furthermore, we must discover the roots of the underlying fear that persists in our society which allows for racist language and ideas to prevail. Our country is multicultural where no one culture dominates, and the sooner we embrace our diversity, the sooner we can salvage our communities.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting assessment of Asian American inner struggles. Interesting that Asian American wasn’t a thing or a dedicated “race” 50 years ago. Makes sense that since Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Vietnamese Americans, etc. do not share language or cultures, as a collective group there is little cohesiveness. This book was written 25 years ago. I’d recommend a more recent book by this author before reading this.

[Andrew K · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book made me feel deeply

“but let us recall, too, that what matters in the end is not one’s inheritance but one makes of it. that is the difference between glory reflected and glory”

[Ler · Rating 5 out of 5]

RELEVANT.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful beautiful beautiful

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/4 stars

[Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a whim at a used bookstore and probably wouldn't have finished it if it was any longer. It reads like a barely-out-of-school poli-sci wonk from 1998 making big claims about race, because, hey! That's almost what it is. Specifically, it was written by a 29-year-old Clinton staffer.

I enjoyed the author's reflections on his own family, and it was thought-provoking to hear about his relationship with his own "Chineseness." I thought of my dad's immigration experience — or his dad's earlier move from Manila to Los Angeles — during these passages. It was also interesting to hear the ways he's approached conversations about race in his personal life, or in his fledgling political career. Those personal experiences and reflections haven't gone "out of date" because they're personal, and real, and authentic to the author. I wish they'd comprised more of the book.

I was much less interested, and even a little uncomfortable, reading Liu's broader musings on race and Asian identity as a reader in 2025. I don't blame Liu for not predicting just how effectively people like Donald Trump would harness racism for political gain so soon after he wrote this book. It's disappointing that some of his more optimistic predictions for how the conversation about race in the U.S. will evolve have not come to pass. But even with that in mind, other reviewers are right in saying he comes across as both a bit naïve and a bit presumptuous.

I think it was a big claim to say that Asian identity as we know it would probably cease to exist in a generation, even in the hopeful old year of 1998. I was generally a bit uncomfortable during the chapter asking, "Are Asians the New Jews?" and wondered how I would have felt as a Jewish reader. I was a bit lost at his repeated references to the "Chinagate" campaign finance scandal, but I was also all of one year old when this book was written and would probably have known more about it as a reader in 1998.

Also, as other reviewers have mentioned: You went to Yale! We get it.

I guess I'm glad I read this book. There were parts that really made me think, and like I said, it's good to read things you don't fully agree with or like and ask yourself why. But it was such a mixed bag that I can't recommend it.

[sudney kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

i feel like i often struggle with how to critically evaluate the character of a memoir-writer. inherently, writing a memoir means you think something pompous of yourself and your life -- the younger you write it, the more self-absorbed you might be. eric liu writes this memoir as a 29-year-old with a mini wealth of life experience (more than me, at least), and yet i feel like no matter how insightful or intelligent he is, he doesn't have as much to say as he could have if he waited longer to summarize his thoughts. i'm not surprised to learn that he wrote another memoir some 15-20 years later; he undoubtedly felt an urge to add additional layers to his original stance. maybe in 10 years we'll see another final memoir from him.

the book itself ponders the meaning of multiculturalism (mosaic) vs. uniculturalism (assimilating into the dominant culture), especially in the age of mixed-race marriages and mixed-race children. he talks a lot about jews in the latter half of the book, musing upon how jews have in a sense 'become' white -- will the same thing happen to asians? are asians the 'new jews'? he explores the seemingly contrived nature of a pan-asian (american) consciousness and yet is fascinated by the idea that nothing is contrived when it comes to race -- there's only fact and what becomes of it. on the second last page, he writes, "what happens here, of course, is not inherently blessed. it is only the future". i feel a bit frustrated that even 20+ years following the publication of this book i don't really have much further insight when it comes to the questions he poses (see: wasians and asian american culture). i wonder what he thinks of #06 asians on tiktok or 88rising or kpop boys.

regardless of my internal struggle of how to properly summarize the merits and demerits of this book and its author, liu's identity, his self-reported cultural interest and conflict, and his summation of future or perhaps now very current prospects make me think about what it actually does mean to be one thing or another, alongside a meta way of evaluating what influences what i think... and what i think is that this is the hardest i've thought about a non-fiction book in a while.

[KNCHNGL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personally, one of the most emotional reads I have come across in a long time. I picked up this book, wondering how my children would one day regard their ethnic identities, while most certainly trying to divine insight into how to culturally upbring them. I have ended up only with more questions.

Mr. Liu and I seem similar, as ethnic Chinese, born in America. But he's likely the most different ethnic Chinese born in America that I have never known.

Educated parents. Middle-class suburbs. Surrounded by non-Chinese. Politics. Married to white person. Banana to Asian American to Chinese American and/or somewhere in between migration. Chinatown as foreign. These things I am not.

And yet... I agree with almost all his opinions.

How strange it is now, to delve back into the psyche of myself 20 years ago, to find the ideas which were once so central to my own sense of being, as I wonder now how my own children will one day feel.

[Chris Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a quick read, and one that lent itself to short bits of reading, which is all I could manage during the holidays. At times, I found myself taking offense at Eric Liu's comparisons of Asian culture to Jewish culture, thinking that he was relying on the same stereotypes that he was trying so hard to disprove. Near the end, though, I understood his perceptions had come from his career, from his marriage, and from exposure to his extended family and classmates. I decided to give him a pass on the basis that he was just speaking from his own experience. I don't agree with his conclusion that race will soon be an indistinguishable category. I find racial tolerance to be cyclical, and I fear the voice and power given to extremism in today's media culture.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having grown up reading British and (white) American novels, I never realized until recently how little of myself I saw in those texts. Eric Liu's memoir seems to come straight out of my ancestral memory -- I get, at a gut level, everything he talks about, from learning and then forgetting a little bit of Mandarin, to dealing with Chinese hair in the Big Hair '80s. Liu's own ambivalence about racial identity is also familiar. As the only Chinese hapa in my grade, I was always torn between wanting to fit in and knowing that I stood out. His series of essays explores intimate details of his personal experience while encompassing much larger questions about what race means in America. He gets at something he's not sure even exists: the Asian America experience.

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard book to rate.

Eric Liu is a great speaker and speech writer. This book shows in a way how he's grown.

It's a vulnerable read with stories about his family and experiences struggling with his identity. He evaluates and shares how he breaks down terms like Chinese American and American Chinese.

However, he makes a few parallels between Asians in general and Jews, which I don't necessarily agree with. Liu seems unsure and makes some uncomfortable assertions about similar struggles to assimilate, but doesn't delve into it much or back it up. He seems unsure of the subject but uncomfortably confident in his statements.

It's an interesting look into Liu's life and will speak to those who struggle with what 'Asian' means.

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 3 out of 5]

These essays were a little dated (published in 1998) but still, unfortunately, quite relevant in many regards. Eric Liu has a writing style that flows with ease — it’s not surprising to me that he had a career as a speechwriter.

This book didn’t blow me away — I thought half of the essays were really poignant and interesting, and the other half had trouble grabbing me (though, I acknowledge the latter might not be “for” me anyway). The essays about Liu’s parents, his childhood, and navigating identity in an America that wishes to erase it, were my favorites.

Regardless, I would recommend this to anyone! It’s an easy read, and a meaningful one.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Accidental Asian is one man's perspective on his own life as an Asian-American (American Born Chinese) that nevertheless provides much food for thought on the broader experience of being of Asian descent in the US. Liu raises issues of assimilation (pro and con), cultural vs. national vs. personal identity, the need of the dominant culture to categorize anyone deemed "other" into neat boxes, the various problems of the term Asian American, and much more. Published in 1998, the book is a bit dated in that some of Liu's predictions about the integration/homogenization of API peoples into American culture have not proven to be accurate. Otherwise, it is a valuable read.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 -4 stars but not quite 4 stars. A wonderful meditation on what it means to be Asian American. The prose is excellent. There are some touching essays about his family that anyone can identify with. I have a similar background as Liu, and although I've approached my identity from a different angle, I can appreciate his thoughts and concerns. This is the type of stuff I would have been enthralled by while in college. But I've gotten past waxing poetic about identity as an adult so it's less interesting to me now versus my younger self.

[☆ Katie ☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, even though this book was written almost 25 years ago, it is still extremely relevant to the racial climate today. Liu writes about his father's immigration and assimilation process in the United States, as well as his own struggle with his identity. The loss of his native language and his desire to conform make him question his relationship with his heritage. It is personal and philosophical, telling his own stories as well as well-known events in history. It is thought-provoking and deeply intimate.