Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self
Alex Tizon
Jun 2014 · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5.0star
1 reviewreport
Ebook
306
Pages
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About this ebook
“Alex Tizon fearlessly penetrates the core of not just what it means to be male and Asian in America, but what it means to be human anywhere.”—Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author
Shame, Alex Tizon tells us, is universal—his own happened to be about race. To counteract the steady diet of American television and movies that taught Tizon to be ashamed of his face, his skin color, his height, he turned outward. (“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.”) Tizon illuminates his youthful search for Asian men who had no place in his American history books or classrooms. And he tracks what he experienced as seismic change: the rise of powerful, dynamic Asian men like Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang, actor Ken Watanabe, and NBA starter Jeremy Lin. Included in this new edition of Big Little Man is Alex Tizon’s “My Family’s Slave”—2017’s best-read digital article. Published only weeks after Tizon’s death in 2017, it delivers a provocative, haunting, and ultimately redemptive coda.
“A ruthlessly honest personal story and a devastating critique of contemporary American culture.”—The Seattle Times
“Part candid memoir, part incisive cultural study, Big Little Man addresses—and explodes—the stereotypes of Asian manhood. Alex Tizon writes with acumen and courage, and the result is a book at once illuminating and, yes, liberating.”—Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl
“This personal narrative of self-education and growth will engage any reader captivated by the sources of American, and Asian-American, manhood—its multitude of inheritances and prospects.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
Shame, Alex Tizon tells us, is universal—his own happened to be about race. To counteract the steady diet of American television and movies that taught Tizon to be ashamed of his face, his skin color, his height, he turned outward. (“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.”) Tizon illuminates his youthful search for Asian men who had no place in his American history books or classrooms. And he tracks what he experienced as seismic change: the rise of powerful, dynamic Asian men like Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang, actor Ken Watanabe, and NBA starter Jeremy Lin. Included in this new edition of Big Little Man is Alex Tizon’s “My Family’s Slave”—2017’s best-read digital article. Published only weeks after Tizon’s death in 2017, it delivers a provocative, haunting, and ultimately redemptive coda.
“A ruthlessly honest personal story and a devastating critique of contemporary American culture.”—The Seattle Times
“Part candid memoir, part incisive cultural study, Big Little Man addresses—and explodes—the stereotypes of Asian manhood. Alex Tizon writes with acumen and courage, and the result is a book at once illuminating and, yes, liberating.”—Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl
“This personal narrative of self-education and growth will engage any reader captivated by the sources of American, and Asian-American, manhood—its multitude of inheritances and prospects.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
About the author
Alex Tizon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is former Seattle bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times and longtime staff writer for the Seattle Times. He co-produced a 60 Minutes segment on Third World mail-order brides in Asia, and currently teaches at the University of Oregon. Big Little Man was the winner of the prestigious Work in Progress Prize from the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project. Tizon's website is alextizon.com.
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