Big Little Man

In Search of My Asian Self

Alex Tizon

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780544232853
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

"Alex Tizon fearlessly penetrates the core of not just what it means to be male and Asian in America, but what it means to be human anywhere."—Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author
Shame, Alex Tizon tells us, is universal—his own happened to be about race. To counteract the steady diet of American television and movies that taught Tizon to be ashamed of his face, his skin color, his height, he turned outward. ("I had to educate myself on my own worth. It was a sloppy, piecemeal education, but I had to do it because no one else was going to do it for me.") Tizon illuminates his youthful search for Asian men who had no place in his American history books or classrooms. And he tracks what he experienced as seismic change: the rise of powerful, dynamic Asian men like Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang, actor Ken Watanabe, and NBA starter Jeremy Lin. Included in this new edition of  Big Little Man is Alex Tizon's "My Family's Slave"—2017's best-read digital article. Published only weeks after Tizon's death in 2017, it delivers a provocative, haunting, and ultimately redemptive coda.
"A ruthlessly honest personal story and a devastating critique of contemporary American culture."— The Seattle Times
"Part candid memoir, part incisive cultural study,  Big Little Man addresses—and explodes—the stereotypes of Asian manhood. Alex Tizon writes with acumen and courage, and the result is a book at once illuminating and, yes, liberating."—Peter Ho Davies, author of  The Welsh Girl 
 
"This personal narrative of self-education and growth will engage any reader captivated by the sources of American, and Asian-American, manhood—its multitude of inheritances and prospects."— Minneapolis Star Tribune

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Killing Magellan
• Land of the Giants
• Orientals
• Seeking Hot Asian Babes
• Babes, Continued
• Asian Boy
• Tiny Men on the Big Screen
• Its Color Was Its Size
• Getting Tall
• Wen Wu
• Yellow Tornado
• “What Men Are Supposed to Do”
• “One of Us, Not One of Us”
• Big Little Fighter
• My Family’s Slave
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Selected Sources
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH