Rachel Khong explores genetics, race and the idea of ​​being American in new novel: NPR

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

A high school romance at the turn of the millennium in New York, a young man coming of age in the Pacific Northwest, a Chinese science student determining her own future as communism takes hold in her country – these are three of the people we meet in the new novel “Real Americans” by Rachel Khong. The book explores not only what it means to be an American and who can become one, but also questions about ethics, genetics and power. Author Rachel Khong joins us now. To welcome.

RACHEL KHONG: Thank you very much for inviting me.

SUMMERS: The first character we are introduced to is Lily. And when we meet her, it’s 1999, and she’s a recent college graduate and doing this unpaid internship in Manhattan. Can you tell us a little about Lily?

KHONG: Yeah. Lily is around twenty years old. She is truly adrift in life. She doesn’t really know what she wants to do when she grows up. And she grew up in America with so much privilege, under the watchful eye of her mother, who is a much more ambitious person and has a lot of big dreams for her. Lily is an art history student. She is someone who, at one point, thought she could be an architect, but then realized she didn’t have the ambition or motivation to do so. And she’s just looking for a place to belong. She’s looking for someone to belong to. And that’s kind of where we find her when she meets Matthew, who is, I think unbeknownst to him, the rich heir to this pharmaceutical empire.

SUMMERS: There’s this moment at the beginning of the book that I want to ask you about, and that’s when Lily is at Matthew’s very expensive apartment. And she talks about how she saw the two of them together in one of the many mirrors in that apartment, and she says, and I quote her here, “in our reflection I saw an all-American man with a foreign woman , even though I was also all-American, and that really struck me as the heart of a lot of what the book addresses in its three parts.

KHONG: Absolutely. I mean, that’s a thought she has that I wish she didn’t have. I wish she hadn’t grown up in a country that made her feel this way. She is entirely American. She was born in America, raised American, but she always feels that when other people see her, they don’t see, quote, a “real” American, and she’s always different in her own culture. I mean, it’s really the only culture she knows, but she still feels a little outside of it.

And this book is very much about how we apply our preconceptions to how we approach other people, how we see other people. Often this is based on really superficial traits, and there is much more than meets the eye. And I think that for each of these characters, that’s absolutely true. You might look at them and think you know their story, but in reality, it’s anything but what you imagined.

SUMMERS: There are also a number of scenes that explore interracial relationships, particularly those in which white men are the romantic partners of Asian women. I think specifically – there’s this scene where Lily takes Matthew to meet two of her friends, and she’s sort of wondering, why are they all in relationships with white partners? And she thinks about how she sees her friends changing their behavior, talking differently with these men. And I’m wondering how you thought about this dynamic.

KHONG: Yeah. I mean, it’s such a rich question, right? – because I absolutely wanted to explore this phenomenon. I mean, I think it’s – relationships between Asian women and white men are – they’re pretty common. And I think Lily sort of sees – I guess she sees that she’s become part of this narrative without knowing it, right? Like, she’s become an example of someone who glorifies her white male partner even though she hasn’t really – yeah – maybe, like, signed, explicitly agreed. It was sort of something that she would almost tell him the story of and then embrace it and then look around and wonder, oh, is this what I actually want – is this what I want really ?

SUMMERS: A lot of this book is about conversations across generations between members of a family, whether it’s Lily and Nick, Nick and Matthew, or other family members. And these are often very difficult conversations. And I have to say, at least in the family I grew up in, that doesn’t happen unless someone forces it.

KHONG: Yeah.

SUMMERS: But they were a very big part of this book. How did you think about the things these characters say to each other, to their loved ones, and the things they can’t say?

KHONG: Yes, I agree with you. I think it’s really hard to have these conversations, especially once you have some sort of pattern of communication with your family. If you don’t regularly delve into people’s complex histories, it can be difficult to bring it up at the dinner table on a random night. So I always felt that way.

But at the same time, I’ve been so curious about my parents’ past, my grandparents’ past, in part, I think, because there’s a huge gap in all kinds of knowledge. I mean, there’s cultural knowledge. There’s just a difference in the way we use language, you know, because I’m more of an English speaker. And it can be very difficult to communicate our realities to each other, and yet, I really want to know. You know, I really want to know what makes my loved ones who they are. And especially with older people, it’s so easy, especially in American culture, to value youth and dismiss older people when, to me, it seems like it’s just the other way around. You know, there’s so much to learn. Yeah, I just want to compare notes.

SUMMERS: That’s right.

KHONG: You know, I think history – we always talk about history repeating itself, and so we need to know what that is.

SUMMERS: I wonder, for you, is this book an invitation for us to explore the lives of our family members, our loved ones, or perhaps is it a cautionary tale, a warning about what is happening if we don’t do it, if we don’t ask these difficult questions?

KHONG: I think that’s absolutely the case. Yeah. You know, it’s – I think it’s an invitation to be present with your loved ones, to ask them for their stories, but also, you know, if it’s not really their emotional currency, if the story – if the stories don’t come, that’s okay too. I think there is a kind of right presence that is more important than the words themselves. You know, I say this after writing an entire book to try to communicate both with my family and with others, but I think words can only go so far. And it’s the physical act of being in the same room with other human beings and trying to connect – like, for me, that’s sort of primal.

SUMMERS: Rachel Khong, her latest novel “Real Americans” is now available. Rachel, thank you.

KHONG: Thank you very much.

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