I really enjoyed Tran’s writing style in the Book of the Other, his choice of writing style is very unique from those I have seen before. I thought the use of no capitalization throughout the piece was an interesting choice. It felt like I was reading a long text from a friend. I also thought the some paragraphs being larger than others was a cool choice, it made those paragraphs stick out more to me. I thought Book of the Other from the excerpts was written very nicely and in away that kept me intrigued throughout.
I feel the way it was written helped to dig a little deeper and see deeper. I feel like the use of no capitalization made it feel like everything was of the same importance to be read. The use of the white space, for me gave me time to pause and think about what I had just read. They felt as though they were giving you time to sit with what you were just reading. Use of his punctuation made it feel as though he was jumping from thought to thought. It was interesting because even though to me it felt as though you were jumping from thought to thought, all of the “thoughts” correlated and were complete.
The country has become very divided since 2020 and since then the violence against Asian Americans has been very high as well. He might have chosen to no longer hold back after the multiple phone calls he received from his mom saying another Vietnamese man has died. “Eight in the morning my mother calls with details of how a Vietnamese man was killed and dismembered,” (Tran, 2022). He was fed up with the calls and seeing the violence on the news.
The Other to me is the microaggressions and the real aggression shown towards people of color, in this piece it is African and Asian Americans. It is how they are treated and how what happens to them affects more the just their families but communities of people. “so what if you are consistently called by your last name. it is easier to pronounce. it is just a small thing. these things. they accumulate,” (Tran, 2022). The Other could be the self-doubt that accumulates from the racism and microaggressions that people of color receive.
Harryette Mullen wrote We Are Not Responsible, which to me portrayed that the government and police force are not responsible for what happens to people of color. That it is not part of the police officers duty to ensure the safety of them as well. “You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile,” (Mullen, 2017). This fits into the theme of Tran’s work, because in some way portray how the African American man is deemed as dangerous even if innocent. They both bring in themes of how the systems in the United States work against people of color.
Mullen, Harryette. “We Are Not Responsible.” Poetry Foundation, 2017. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/145281/we-are-not-responsible.
Tran, Truong. Book of the other: Small in comparison: Essay. prose. poems. antipoems. Los Angeles: Kaya Press, 2021.