YELLOW “Race in America Beyond Black and White” by Frank Wu

Frank H. Wu wrote an interesting book called “Yellow”, which brings an important topic on the issues of races in America. We go beyond the colors of black and white to bring in new colors, red, yellow, orange, etc. The point being that America needs to realize there are more colors to the spectrum of race.
The book helped me to understand a little of how harmful generalizing races can be. Positive ones and negative ones still hinder races because if you don’t live to those standards society tends to disclaim you from that race. Like in the book he talks about how he doesn’t think he’s the smartest guy in the world, or good with computers, does that mean I’m not Asian. People tend to generalize Asians to being doctors and technicians, but the book convinced the reader to see much more than that, to see the Asians as people who are passionate at what they do. Take Jackie Chan, Michelle Kwon, Lucy Lou, or Bruce Lee, they aren’t’ doctors but people who are good at what they do.
Another thing that this book helped me to see was how society today has left everyone thinking that looking Caucasian is what makes you look beautiful. A great example would be to look at the media and see what they think defines beauty. Other races even straighten their hair, nip and tuck the structures of their bodies to try and achieve this look. And speaking about looks Frank Wu brings another point of how Americans perceive Asians. He talks about how a famous magazine Article from World War II made it a Sport of how to tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese people. They came up with answers like facial features and body structures.
Frank Wu wrote the book in a way that, instead of writing a story of his life, he persuades the reader to understand the issue as if the whole book was one big research paper. He breaks the book down to eight chapters each expressing a deep and well thought out point. The reader is left with a reassuring truth that what frank Wu is writing is fact, because at the end of his book he provides all the sources he ever used to making this book. At the Beginning of the book he started kind of slow in order to get the reader to understand the things that he is saying. Because in everything that he wrote he wrote it like a step-by-step process, somewhat like a series of events. To conclude this book should be in the homes of Americans everywhere because this is a great meaning of what it is to be an American; the ability to accept different people no matter their race.