Thi Bui’s “The Best We Could Do,” which won an American Book Award in 2018, recounts her family’s flight from war-torn Vietnam to the United States. Illustrated memoirs in particular surged during the Trump years. And in recent years, Asian American writers are increasingly publishing works that reckon with the country’s racial injustices, past and present. Graphic novels, with their powerful blend of images and words, have grown in popularity as a literary genre to explore the legacy of racism and the complexity of the immigrant experience. “We wouldn’t have ended up with generation upon generation of Chinese Americans in this country if it were complete and utter misery every single moment of the time.” “When you start to examine the history of marginalized groups, it’s never just about trauma,” Khor told NBC Asian America. A page from "The Legend of Auntie Po." Shing Yin Khor But rather than dwelling on the pain and setbacks the group faced, Khor offers hope and whimsy by focusing on the gains, like how Chinese workers developed friendships with Black and Indigenous loggers.
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