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What It Feels Like to Inhabit an Asian Body in America
In her new book of essays, ‘Minor Feelings,’ Cathy Park Hong confronts an identity that ‘takes up apologetic space’
In the spring of 2017, David Dao, a doctor and passenger on United’s sold-out Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville, refused to give up his seat to accommodate airline staff. Security officers dragged him into the aisle, slamming Dao’s face into the opposite row. His body went limp. The officers dragged him toward the cockpit with his arms above his head, glasses askew, his sweater riding up to expose his stomach. Dao ran back onto the plane, blood dripping down his face. He clung to a divider curtain and muttered over and over: “Kill me… just kill me now.” Before his removal, another passenger swore he’d heard Dao say something like, “I’m being selected because I’m Chinese.”
Videos made by fellow passengers went viral, turning the incident into a fiasco for United. Dao’s lawyer said the 69-year-old doctor suffered a concussion, a broken nose, and broken teeth. For a minute, it was the biggest story in America. The commentariat agreed what the airline had done was wrong — they could just never quite decide whether it had happened because Dao was Asian. It was three months into the Trump administration. White supremacists were…
