by Kat Chow
2 Part 2, Chapter 4: David Eng, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Shinhee Han, a psychotherapist in New York City, wrote the book Racial Melancholia, Racial Disassociation. They argue that melancholia can facilitate resilience and hope. In one of their earlier papers, they write, “It is the melancholic who helps us come face-to-face with this social truth. It is the melancholic who teaches us that ‘in the last resort we must begin to love in order not to fall ill’ (Freud, 1914, p. 85).”
3 Part 2, Chapter 19: My father has similar views decades later, when the demonstrations in Hong Kong that demanded inquiry into the police, as well as full democracy and independence from China, were met with violence and tightening of laws from the Communist government.
4 Part 2, Chapter 19: My father did not know then—might refuse to acknowledge—that Wisconsin, the very state where he’d chosen his college, would later have one of the highest rates of incarceration of Black men in the country. Or that in Detroit in 1982, a draftsman named Vincent Chin would be brutally beaten to death by two white men on the evening of his bachelor party. Witnesses testified that Chin’s killers, who had worked in Detroit’s auto industry, had said that it was “because of you little motherfuckers that we’re out of work.” Though Chin was Chinese American and had been mistaken for being Japanese, the outcome of that racism was the same—Chin’s death. His killers would not serve any prison time. This case would become one of the most notable hate crimes in Asian American—American—history and is often cited in textbooks, just one of many examples of the insidious, xenophobic violence woven into the fabric of this country.
5 Part 2, Chapter 22: These days, I can’t think about my father’s restaurant and the one I worked in high school without recalling a conversation I’d once had with a law professor named Gabriel “Jack” Chin. I’d interviewed him because he had studied the ways in which lawmakers and union members had during Chinese exclusion, as he put it, waged a “war” on Chinese restaurants. There was a violence within his vocabulary that pointed to the direness of America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, how so many people had rallied to create a methodical and systemic attack on Chinese immigrants. These restaurants were considered by many white Americans in that era to be “dens of vice”—where white women were susceptible to moral corruption via booze, opium, and sex. The restaurants had become stand-ins for how society regarded the people who operated them.
6 Part 2, Chapter 23: Asians in the U.S.—and in particular those from East Asian countries—only ascended the so-called societal ladder when it became politically convenient or discrimination against them lessened, not because of some innate cultural work ethic or strong family values, as some conservative idealogues argue when trying to generalize Asians in the U.S. One example: The Magnuson Act of 1943, which allowed 105 Chinese immigrants into the U.S. each year, was signed into law during the backdrop of World War II, when politicians in the U.S. worried that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 would damage an allyship with China against imperial Japan.
7 Part 4, Chapter 4: Mitzi Espinosa Luis’s story appears in Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History, an informative bank of research from Kathleen López, an assistant professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Mitzi’s grandfather, Francisco Luis—who had previously been known as Lui Fan—emigrated from China and lived in Cuba. He had two families—one in Havana, and one in Guangdong Province—and his older children in China referred to his daughters in Cuba as sanmei and simei, or third and fourth sisters. Mitzi, not long ago, traveled to China to visit the village where her grandfather had grown up, and was able to meet her cousins. I read about this transnational reunion with a longing.
8 Part 4, Chapter 4: Though the Cuban Revolution, writes Kathleen López in Chinese Cubans, “held the promise of better treatment for ethnic minorities…state revolutionary ideology and the loss of small businesses made it difficult, if not impossible, for Chinese and their descendants to actively engage in ethnic practices. On the other hand, unlike the situation in the United States, Chinese were not excluded from cultural citizenship in Cuba. The Chinese who remained on the island are simply never asked by fellow Cubans, ‘Where are you from?’”
Acknowledgments
Ancestors guided each iteration of this story, including the many versions that my younger self attempted. It feels miraculous to be here now after stumbling along such a circuitous path, similar to the one that I took to honor my family’s ghosts. I finished writing and editing this book during the pandemic, amidst the protests against the police killings of Black people and the surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans. So much gratitude for the people who were endlessly buoyant and carried me through this.
Thank you to my mother, Florence Yu Chow, for teaching me both resolve and tenderness, and for propelling me to tell this story and so many more.
Thank you to my family for sharing their memories and becoming such an integral part of this process—especially when it felt hard or ma fan. Daddy, thank you for all those hours on the phone and FaceTime recounting family stories and helping me understand your history, and therefore, you—that time was a gift, and I will try to remember that I don’t need an excuse to call you. Steph and Caroline, thank you for your unfiltered love and thoughtfulness, for reading early drafts of this book, and for mothering me always. I have immense gratitude for my mother’s family, my yi ma, Kevin, Garrick, Garvin, Ivy, and many others, for their generosity in helping me understand my mother and her history. I have only love for my kau fu, who passed suddenly in the spring of 2020, and who taught me about the fierceness of caring so deeply.
Maddie Caldwell shepherded this book with wit, humor, and empathy, and understood from the beginning what this book could become. The rest of the Grand Central crew—Jacqueline Young, Matthew Ballast, Ivy Cheng, Morgan Swift, Tree Abraham, Albert Tang, Luria Rittenberg, Marie Mundaca, Lori Paximadis, Helen Chin, and so many more—gave this book a home and treated this story with care and respect. Jin Auh came on board at a crucial time and brought new life and energy to this project—thanks to Jin for the sharp insight and the tireless advocacy of this book. Thanks also to Elizabeth Pratt and the rest of the Wylie Agency, for the support during this process.
Many of my earlier personal essays would not have existed without Keith Woods’s encouragement and the ways he challenged me to interrogate my writing. Our conversations about Seeing Ghosts’s many drafts at that little spot in Mount Pleasant were defining, and his feedback helped this ghost haunt. Thanks to Keith, especially, for leading me to one of this book’s defining questions about what it is that we owe.
I am so thankful for Mariya Karimjee, our friendship, her rigorous feedback on countless drafts, and our daily check-ins about writing. Thanks to Mariya for telling me that writing a book was like a series of trust falls—advice I have returned to every day. Whew.
Thank you to LeiLani Nishime and Shawn Wong, who in my formative years at the University of Washington, took hours each week to chat with me about immigrant narratives and Asian American literature—and, crucially, to read my writing. LeiLani’s guidance and friendship over all these years have meant so much, and Shawn’s stories have remained with me.
Thank you to my writing teachers: Blakeslee Lloyd and Tim Sanderson in Glastonbury, for reading the many handwritten poems and stories, freshly torn from notebooks, that my teenaged-self left on their desks with hopes for a critique; and Danielle Lazarin and Tony Tulathimutte, for leading classes at Catapult and through CRIT that gave me space to play with my fiction.
I have so much gratitude for Claire Tran, whose meticulous research helped me write the sections about Hartford. Thank you also to Jack Dougherty of Trinity College and Beverly Lucas, director of Cedar Hill Cemetery Foundation, for answering my various questions. Jaime Chu’s keen eye and help with my Cantonese were crucial. Thank you to Mary Glendenning for pointing me toward archival material. Jay Venables, at many points, provided invaluable notes and guidance.
<
br /> Thank you to my amazing crew of readers, whose encouragement and feedback shaped what Seeing Ghosts has become. Many of my favorite parts can be traced to your comments, and I am both so sorry and grateful for the friends who read a billion drafts of this book, including the pages that will not be published: Alison Grubbs, Stephanie Foo, Camila Domonoske, Leah Donnella, Lillian Li, Tobin Low, Caitlin Dewey, Tanvi Misra, Cathy Linh Che, Enkay Iguh, Ruth Tam. Thank you to Ariel Zambelich, Kiah Wagner, and Emily Bogle, for their visual expertise.
My sieve brain is surely leaking names, but so many people sustained me throughout this process through their words or advice or friendship: Nicole Chung, Rahawa Haile, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Ocean Vuong, Jacqueline Woodson, Reese Kwon, Elise Hu, Eyder Peralta, Nadine Ajaka, Lenika Cruz, Tuyen Nguyen, Lexie Krell, Joanna Nolasco, Kyle Kim, Tracie Hunte, Masuma Ahuja, and Kathy Tu. Each one of you lent a listening ear at a crucial time. Thank you to those who helped me recount memories—Lucas Anderson, Colin Gorenstein, Kristen Steenbeeke, Meg Dagon, and Peggy O’Neill, to name some—and to my friends and former colleagues at NPR who encouraged me to write this book, especially Shereen Marisol Meraji, Karen Grigsby Bates, Matt Thompson, and Alicia Montgomery.
Seeing Ghosts took shape at the magical Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat in Taos, New Mexico, where I found strength and community—and so many incredible ghost stories—in Kima Jones, LaToya Watkins, Larissa Pham, Robin Beck, Nichole Perkins, Yalitza Ferreras, Lise Ragbir, Branden Janese, Morgan Mann Willis, Jenna Wortham, Meredith Talusan, Mona Chalabi, Conley Lyons, Destiny Birdsong, Yvonne McBride, and Hope Olaide. Thank you to Alexander Chee for creating the Yi Dae Up fellowship, and for being so generous with your words over the years. My gratitude also goes to Calliope Nicholas and Monika Burczyk for providing a gorgeous space for me to write at The Millay Colony.
An enormous thanks to Mitzi Espinosa Luis, Pok Chi Lau, Graciela Lau, María Elena Hung, and many others, whose help in Havana made the discovery of my grandfather’s remains in Cuba possible. My family is eternally grateful.
Thank you to C.J., for being my best friend and creating a home within yourself for me, and for allowing me to make a home for you, too. I am so incredibly charmed by all of the new ways you make me laugh. I have so much gratitude to your family for welcoming me, and it means so much that you love my family as your own. Your love makes anything feel possible.
Reading Group Guide for
SEEING GHOSTS
Discussion Questions
Later in life, Kat’s father seems to be obsessed with preservation: he taxidermies a fish and refuses to throw out items accumulating in his home. Earlier in his life, though, he seems be indifferent—declining to send for his deceased mother’s possessions. What do you think catalyzed that shift? Have you had a similar experience, growing more attached to possessions as you’ve aged?
Kat writes that, for years, her family grieved by not telling any stories about her mother. Do you think, then, that writing this memoir is finally a way to preserve her mother’s memory? Or is it instead an exorcism of the painful memories Kat’s carried since her passing? Could it be both?
Kat seems concerned with all the ways she’s “failed” in her grief: not visiting Mahayana Temple more frequently, the headstone hiccup, talking about food at her mother’s funeral. Yet her love for her mother is palpable. Do you think there is a proper way to grieve? How can cultural observances of grief help or hinder healing?
Kat quotes the poet Diana Khoi Nguyen reflecting on how difficult it was to return to her familial home after her brother’s death. Do you think Kat and her sisters felt similarly? What must it have been like, then, for their father to stay?
After hearing of her mother’s diagnosis, the first thing Kat asks her mother is about getting a horse. Why do you think she chose that topic? Have you also struggled to find the words for loss?
Kat reveals that Kau Fu has long believed that her father was partially responsible for her mother’s death, and that her father tried to sue the hospital. Why do you think they both sought someone to blame? How is that easier to swallow than the truth?
How do you think losing their mother helped inform Kat and her sisters’ understanding of their father’s search for his father? In that vein, what experiences of yours most significantly changed how you understood your parents?
For a memoir, Seeing Ghosts is rich with history: that of Hartford, of China and Hong Kong, and of various figures like Yung Wing and Lon Dorsa. How are these histories inextricable from Kat’s story? Could she have written this book without them? What histories inform your story?
Kat includes a number of details related to food, as well as a few scenes in restaurants. What importance did restaurants and the food itself carry for her family? How has food come to symbolize grief or family traditions in your own life?
After losing their mother, Steph and Caroline began to take more care of Kat, emotionally and materially, just as Yi Ma took care of Kat’s mother. What do you think this says about the role of mother and the composition of a family?
Kat feels the specter of her mother long after her passing. Likewise, her father seems to be driven to action by the wishes of his departed parents. What are the significances of ghosts in this book? How do you feel them in your own lives?
Kat and her sisters seem to have been spurred to rebury Jonathan after their father finds his father’s bones in Cuba. That is a quest he undertook, though, only after his daughters lost their mother. How did they all catalyze each other? How does this speak to inheritance and what we each inherit from our family members?
Kat portrays the displacement and the pursuit of success, whether it be how her yi ma marries a stranger and moves to the United States, or the chosen careers of each of her parents. What do these instances reveal about the American Dream? Are there other ways this project comments on its pursuit?
Kat writes matter-of-factly about the expenses related to burying a loved one—and the financial strains that can occur after a loved one’s passing. What does this reveal about how class affects grief?
Discover Your Next Great Read
Get sneak peeks, book recommendations, and news about your favorite authors.
Tap here to learn more.
About the Author
KAT CHOW is a writer and a journalist. She was a reporter at NPR, where she was a founding member of the Code Switch team. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and on Radiolab, among others. She’s one of Pop Culture Happy Hour’s fourth chairs. She’s received residency fellowships from the Millay Colony and the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat.
