De la Cruz, Melissa - Fresh Off the Boat
I went on a bit of a spree at the library yesterday and basically grabbed any random YA book that looked like it had girls of color in it. Thankfully, I liked the first one I read!
Vicenza (called "V") just moved to South San Francisco from Manila. Her family has to shop at the Salvation Army instead of Chanel like they used to, she misses her old friends, and, worst of all, she's going to a fancy all-girls school on a scholarship -- i.e. no boys!
V, as you can tell, is a bit shallow at times. She thinks mostly about clothes and boys and wishes the popular girls at school would magically befriend her. But honestly, that's a large part of why I loved this so much. It's YA chicklit, and it would be completely unremarkable, except V is a Filipino immigrant. I loved finding a YA book with a POC heroine that wasn't all about identity crises and learning to accept your own culture; I think those books are good and necessary, but personally, been there, done that, have the t-shirt.
V desperately wants to fit in, she hates not having money, and she's horribly embarrassed by her parents, but she's not ashamed of being Filipino. She's ashamed of a lot of the results of being Filipino and being an immigrant, but the sense that I got was that it was just another bit of embarrassment in the general land of "You're embarrassing me! Woe!" that is a fourteen-year-old's life.
It's hard to explain, but it just didn't feel like the "I wish I were white" shame in a lot of Asian-American YA lit (again, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that, because hi! I could have been the poster child for that). And OMG people! It sounds like such a small thing, but it made me so, so happy.
I think part of it is because she did grow up rich in Manila, which is very different from growing up Filipino-American, but still. Also, I have class issues like woah with the book, and by the end (and by reading the author's website), I am fairly convinced that while de la Cruz deals a little with them by the end, she doesn't find them quite as questionable as I do.
But in the end, I had a lot of fun reading the book. I laughed a lot because V is such an emo fourteen-year-old ("I'll be in a BUTT BOW! I hate my dress!! I hate it!! AGGHHH. I'M SO MISERABLE!!!!!"), but I say that with the greatest affection. V's voice is fun and silly, I loved seeing bits of Filipino culture without having it be "Look! We are Filipino!" in giant flashing lights, I loved the little Bay Area details, and even though her concerns are fairly small in the large scale, I was rooting for her the entire way.
Links:
- sanguinity's review
- furyofvissarion's review
Vicenza (called "V") just moved to South San Francisco from Manila. Her family has to shop at the Salvation Army instead of Chanel like they used to, she misses her old friends, and, worst of all, she's going to a fancy all-girls school on a scholarship -- i.e. no boys!
V, as you can tell, is a bit shallow at times. She thinks mostly about clothes and boys and wishes the popular girls at school would magically befriend her. But honestly, that's a large part of why I loved this so much. It's YA chicklit, and it would be completely unremarkable, except V is a Filipino immigrant. I loved finding a YA book with a POC heroine that wasn't all about identity crises and learning to accept your own culture; I think those books are good and necessary, but personally, been there, done that, have the t-shirt.
V desperately wants to fit in, she hates not having money, and she's horribly embarrassed by her parents, but she's not ashamed of being Filipino. She's ashamed of a lot of the results of being Filipino and being an immigrant, but the sense that I got was that it was just another bit of embarrassment in the general land of "You're embarrassing me! Woe!" that is a fourteen-year-old's life.
It's hard to explain, but it just didn't feel like the "I wish I were white" shame in a lot of Asian-American YA lit (again, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that, because hi! I could have been the poster child for that). And OMG people! It sounds like such a small thing, but it made me so, so happy.
I think part of it is because she did grow up rich in Manila, which is very different from growing up Filipino-American, but still. Also, I have class issues like woah with the book, and by the end (and by reading the author's website), I am fairly convinced that while de la Cruz deals a little with them by the end, she doesn't find them quite as questionable as I do.
But in the end, I had a lot of fun reading the book. I laughed a lot because V is such an emo fourteen-year-old ("I'll be in a BUTT BOW! I hate my dress!! I hate it!! AGGHHH. I'M SO MISERABLE!!!!!"), but I say that with the greatest affection. V's voice is fun and silly, I loved seeing bits of Filipino culture without having it be "Look! We are Filipino!" in giant flashing lights, I loved the little Bay Area details, and even though her concerns are fairly small in the large scale, I was rooting for her the entire way.
Links:
- sanguinity's review
- furyofvissarion's review