From a Different Shore

By Romesh Ratnesar

When he was in high school, Eric Liu labored desperately not to be defined by his race. He made himself into a "Renaissance boy"--a wrestler and musician, prizewinning scientist and newspaper editor--all to avoid the stereotypes commonly affixed to young Asian-American males. As Liu writes in his new book, The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker (Random House; 206 pages; $23), his effort to distinguish himself didn't always work: "In the eyes of some, I suppose, I was simply another Asian 'overachiever.'"

This book should change that. The Accidental Asian provides a perspective on race often ignored in America's black-white conversation. It is in part a collection of essays on racial identity and the place in American life occupied by the 10 million Americans who claim Asian descent. But it is also a family narrative: the story of Liu's immigrant Chinese parents and their assimilation into American society, and Liu's own struggle to transcend his race while not selling out his heritage. The result is a unique--and uniquely American--memoir, suffused with smarts, elegance and warmth.

Like his book, Liu, 29, defies easy categorization. He grew up in an integrated middle-class suburb of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., the son of professionals; he went on to Yale and Harvard Law School, worked as a Clinton speechwriter and became an MSNBC pundit. As an adolescent he identified less with other Asians than with "that subset of people... who were educated, affluent: going places." He began, he says, to "imagine myself beyond race." In The Accidental Asian, Liu still distances himself from the identity politics of the multicultural left. He points out the folly in the idea that a shared Asian-American identity can be woven from the many strands--Japanese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani--of Asians in America. And he argues further that racial groupthink can stir up resentments and erect walls among the races. But Liu recognizes the importance of preserving ethnic ties, and unlike many conservatives, he resists dismissing those who still yearn for racial belonging. "While racial identity is sometimes a shackle," he writes, "it is not only a shackle."

Liu's careful, balanced views on race are a soothing respite from the usual partisan cacophony, which makes his cursory treatment of the most divisive issue--affirmative action--a little disappointing. Still he comments insightfully on almost every other race-loaded topic of the day, from the Asian campaign-finance scandal to Tiger Woods. "I wish for a society that treats race as an option, the way white people today are able to enjoy ethnicity as an option," he writes. "As something cost-free, neutral, fluid."

It may already be happening. More than half of Asian Americans under 34 marry outside their race (Liu is among them), and as he notes in the book's concluding essay, the boom in interracial marriage offers some fresh promise for America's agonized debate on race. Writes Liu: "Something new is emerging from the torrent." This book makes one hope Liu will be there to chronicle it.

--By Romesh Ratnesar