Article by Amanda La, Writing Team @mndalils
I was scrolling through TikTok, procrastinating on the reading assignments I was supposed to be reading, and the essays I was supposed to be writing, when I saw someone on ‘Book Tok’ recommending a new YA novel that was recently released. The novel? Michelle Quach’s debut titled Not Here to be Liked. After reading a short synopsis of it from Goodreads, and learning that the plot was about a feminist Eliza Quach who gets into a complicated situation with her archrival, I was even more eager to read the novel. So, I did what I had to do: I purchased an e-book version and started reading right away. After all, there aren’t many books, especially in the young adult category that feature an Asian protagonist.
After reading the novel, I excitedly shared how much I loved the novel to anyone who would listen. I felt so drawn and connected to the characters who I shared a similar background to. There were parts of the story that had me thinking for a second that I was Eliza! And this made me think—as much as I loved reading, it was so hard for me to envision myself as the character— because the visual descriptions of characters in popular novels tended to more often than not have eurocentric features because they’re white.
Growing up especially, this made things hard because even though I had found a solace in literature, there were so few characters that I could relate to. Even more so, the plot of the few Asian-centric stories I read were mostly all the same: memoirs focusing on the traumas of immigrant families. So, I figured that I could be an author when I grew up, then I would write a book featuring an Asian ensemble that didn’t seem to exotify my people, as novels often did by focusing on a character’s asianness, but have the characters just be regular people, who just happen to be Asian. But the question was, what if I couldn’t? There were so few Asian authors in Western literature that even existed to me, even fewer were writing stories in genres that their white counterparts were able to write. Because if there weren’t Asian characters in novels, what did that mean? Are Asians not marketable? Does no one want to read about Asians?
When thinking of the word “media,” what first comes to mind is typically television and movies. Then people start remembering other types of media such as art, the internet, video games, newspapers, etc. Nine out of ten times though, books end up being forgotten as a form of media. Therefore, even as the conversations around the lack of representation in media grows day by day, the necessary conversation regarding the lack of representation in novels still remains largely nonexistent.
Michelle Quach, author of Not Here to Be Liked, is here to have the conversation.
As someone who came from a Chinese-Vietnamese family, I really connected with the familial scenes in your book and felt that some of the dialogue mirrored what I've experienced in my own life. When writing those scenes did you draw on your own conversations with your family or did you have other influences as well?
I’m so glad—I always love hearing from fellow wàh kìuh readers. I did draw some inspiration from my family, but I also pulled details from the lives of friends and people in our broader community. I admit that I eavesdropped a lot as a kid, so that came in handy. The nice thing about fiction, though, is that you can mix it all up and no one can say you didn’t get the stories right, since they’re not supposed to be true-to-life!
I really loved how the novel focused on Eliza and her peers learning about, navigating through, and embracing feminism; especially that even the secondary characters had their own character growth rather than remaining stagnant. What was the writing process like, and what key scenes or elements did you feel were most necessary to include?
I wrote the book chronologically from start to finish, and I revised as I went along. For me, writing is both a very structured and also a very intuitive process. I used an outline (inspired by Billy Mernit's Writing the Romantic Comedy, which I highly recommend), but I would update it as I discovered new things about the story. The characters and themes, though, I knew from the get-go—the hard part was figuring out how to work them into scenes that weren't boring to read!
Did you ever consider how your novel could have an impact regarding the issue of Asian-American media visibility?
I had only just started writing when Crazy Rich Asians and To All the Boys got big, which was fortuitous because those successes were really inspiring—they made me feel for the first time that there was value in even trying to write a story like mine. What I wanted to contribute was a slice of Asian America that was familiar to me, but that I hadn’t really seen much in pop culture: an Asian-majority high school where lots of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse Asians intersected. That said, I also had zero expectations for the book to be published at the time! So it was all a very hypothetical goal.
There has been a narrative scarcity when it comes to stories and portrayal about women, especially women of color. What has been your experience with entering creative spaces that is so typically white cis-male dominated? What have been some common obstacles that you've faced, and what would you like to see changed as younger creatives of colors start to enter the creative fields?
There’s always the worry that your perspective has an expiration date—like maybe the culture will move on from Asian girl stories, for instance, just as you’ve managed to write one. What’s unfortunate is the way marginalized voices often get lumped together in one little corner, while white cis-male stories are always over there luxuriating in their own space! I’ve also felt, as a minority creator who has been given space, that there’s an expectation (possibly self-imposed) that I always need to use it to say something important about my marginalization. Which I don’t actually believe should be the case. All that said, I do think that the publishing industry has made progress on this front, and I’m hopeful that younger creatives will be coming up in a much more inclusive world.
Are there any writers or artists who have inspired you or who you hope would have more recognition?
One of my favorite writers is Alice Pung, who is Chinese Cambodian Australian. Reading her books made me feel truly seen, both as a child of Chinese refugees living in a Western country, and also as an artist—her writing is so emotionally precise and always hits the right notes for me. I also want to give a shout-out to two of my fellow 2021 debuts: Louisa Onomé, a Nigerian-Canadian author, and Mariko Turk, a Japanese-American author, both of whom write beautifully nuanced YA contemporary stories that everyone should read.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: MICHELLE QUACH
Michelle Quach is a graphic designer and writer living in Los Angeles. She’s Chinese-Vietnamese-American and a graduate of Harvard University, where she studied history and literature. She loves rom-coms, characters who don't always do the right thing, and any dog that kind of looks like her dog.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: AMANDA LA
Amanda La is a junior English major and Global Studies minor at UCLA. When she isn’t busy napping, she’s interested in writing about the impacts and influences of digital media and entertainment.
