The Asian Reporter's
BOOK REVIEWS

From The Asian Reporter, V17, #15 (April 10, 2007), page 16.

By Jacqueline Turner Banks

Houghton Mifflin, 2001

Hardcover, 119 pages, $15.00

By Josephine Bridges

It’s unusual to see my parents talking to each other when the sun is still out," reports Tommy, the narrator of A Day for Vincent Chin and Me, in the novel’s very first sentence. Tommy is one of five sixth-graders in Plank, Kentucky who "have been best friends since kindergarten. We call ourselves the Posse, but we haven’t had much success getting anybody else to call us that." Jacqueline Turner Banks’ fourth novel featuring the Posse is both quirky and informative, and it’s a lot of fun to read.

"From about three o’clock until five-thirty, our street is like a combination of the Indianapolis Speedway and a wild roller-coaster ride," Tommy tells us. While Tommy and his friends are hard at work trying to slow the reckless drivers down, Tommy’s mother is making plans for a march on the state capitol to prevent America from ever forgetting about the killing of Vincent Chin, who was beaten to death in Detroit in 1982 by two autoworkers looking for a scapegoat.

Tommy’s mother tries to explain to Tommy and his sister that Vincent Chin’s killers blamed the Japanese auto industry for troubles in Motor City, but Tommy doesn’t get it. "Being Japanese Americans ourselves, we all knew that Chin was not a Japanese name." Tommy also can’t understand why his mother wants to call attention to the family’s ethnicity after he’s spent twelve years trying to fit in.

There’s some fascinating historical information about Asians in America here. It’s tough for Tommy, who confides that he can "feel the staring eyes of my classmates," when his favorite teacher begins a lesson by telling the class: "During World War II, only ten people were convicted of spying for Japan. All of them were Caucasian." Miss Hoffer goes on to explain the Webb Act, which even the clearly gifted and attentive Tommy hasn’t heard of: "Apparently, by the early 1890s, Japanese immigrants in California were doing so well as farmers that white Californians were starting to feel threatened. In 1905 some farmers in San Francisco got together and had a meeting. By 1913 California had passed a law to keep Japanese from buying land."

A Day for Vincent Chin and Me has more than one serious theme, but that doesn’t keep it from being entertaining, too. Tommy has a sophisticated sense of humor, and he’s a good enough sport to make fun of himself now and then. He quips that some endeavor "makes about as much sense as me trying to grow dreadlocks," and uses an ethnically subtle reference to a floodlight that "throws off enough light to wake up my ancestors." Best of all, Tommy can change his mind, and it’s a pleasure for readers to watch that process in action.