By Haley Jones
1. Introduction
Within the world of literary criticism, Young Adult literature is a neglected area of study. The lack of academic interest in this field is nothing short of baffling, considering it is a genre that can explore overarching themes and help readers and critics gain an intimate perspective on this generation of young people’s ideological beliefs, self-perceptions, and worldviews. Within the last few years, many novels centered around social justice— specifically lobbying for socioeconomic equality for minority populations— have taken the spotlight in terms of popular reading for teens and young adults. Following the commercial success of Angie Thomas’s The H8 U Give, these novels are similar to the wave of dystopian trilogies that took over the YA genre after the initial virality of Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, or the vampire craze following Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Still, the market of Young Adult literature is now open for stories in which a person-of-color protagonist works to liberate and stabilize their ethnic community.
It was in this market that Netflix announced the release of the movie adaptation of Jenny Han’s 2014 novel To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. The movie, released in 2018 brought a YA community looking for diverse protagonists to Han’s novel. However, readers were shocked to find that very little of TATBILB’s plot has to do with the protagonist being a person-of-color. Although the main character of the novel, Lara Jean, is a mixed-race Korean American, the plot focuses mainly on her romance with a classmate and her relationship with her family. While this brought criticism down on Han’s portrayal of the American POC experience, the criticism this novel draws fails to take many things into consideration. Within the realm of critical race theory (CRT) exists a strategy called “counterstorytelling,” in which an author takes the societal expectations surrounding race and flips it on its head, deconstructing the expectations set by the audience (Delgado & Stefancic 49-50). Because of this very form of storytelling, it could be argued that Jenny Han’s portrayal of Lara Jean, in not complying with the trend of the racial hero, releases young readers-of-color from the pressure of having to “fix” things within their ethnic communities, as well as giving an honest portrayal of the life of a normal teenager of color through the text’s use of culture.
2. Representation and Activism in Young Adult Literature.
There are always those who conjecture that ethnic representation is not a struggle in the modern world, especially within the realm of literature. The point of reading, after all, is to grow one’s imagination — this is especially true in the world of Children’s and Young Adult literature. If the expectation is that white readers should read stories about protagonists-of-color and empathize with them, then young readers-of-color should be able to do the same thing with a white protagonist. In this way, it is easy to trivialize and fictionalize the hard truth of why representation is important.
To understand the root of the issue, one would have to realize that, according to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CBCC), 50 percent of the 3,134 children’s books published in 2018 had white protagonists (Cooperative Children’s Book Center). The second leading demographic after that were books featuring animal and non-human protagonists, which came in at 27 percent (Cooperative Children’s Book Center). After subtracting those two, the remaining number of books could be broken down into 10 percent featuring an African American protagonist, seven percent with an Asian or Pacific Islander protagonist, five percent with a Latinx protagonist, and finally one percent with an American Indian/First Nations protagonist (Cooperative Children’s Book Center). These numbers ultimately mean that less than a quarter of children’s books published in the United States in 2018 starred a protagonist-of-color. Animal protagonists, in fact, dominated a larger share of the market than the diverse protagonists had combined.
While looking at the quantity of available Young Adult and Children’s literature starring a protagonist-of-color is abysmal, examining the quality of that representation is not much better. With YA being one of the only genres of literature aimed specifically at teenagers with the intent of entertainment, it would be wise of the author to bring characters to life on the page who reflect the reality and experience of the intended reader. While there are genres within the larger Young Adult genre that do not reflect the real world—for instance, science fiction and fantasy—there is a baseline of POC (person-of-color) experience that transcends the bounds of reality and fiction. While Lara Jean does not engage in activism in the novel, she has a baseline of experience as a POC in her narrative. In her book The Dark Fantastic, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas touches on this concept, stating that it is,
one of the most pressing problems in all genres of young adult literature, media, and culture —a long-entrenched lack of diversity—and its implications for young people who are not mirrored in those texts…. When youth grow up without seeing diverse images in the mirrors, windows, and doors of children’s and young adult literature, they are confined to single stories about the world around them and, ultimately, the development of their imagination is affected. (4-6)
Thomas explains that, when representation does occur, it is often in stereotype. She cites this phenomenon as the driving issue behind the reason some teenagers and children-of-color dislike reading. Understandably, perhaps these diverse readers consider that the few protagonists that resemble one’s culture and experience turn out to be gross stereotypes.
Additionally, seeing proper representation in the media one consumes plays an important role in how young readers view themselves. In her essay “Authentic Multicultural Literature for Children: An Author’s Perspective,” Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard posits that, if the purpose of literature is liberation,
the purpose of authentic multicultural literature is to help liberate us from all the preconceived stereotypical hang-ups that imprison us within narrow boundaries. Non-majority readers will be liberated from the invisibility imposed from without, the invisibility that says loudly to children, “You don’t count.” (93)
When young people are deprived of the opportunity to see themselves mirrored in the texts they study or in the media they look to for entertainment, they are receiving a clear message that their story is unimportant—that the stories of people like them are not interesting or worth creating.
This disparity between white protagonists and protagonists-of-color, as well as the emerging data about publication of these stories, sparked the #OwnVoices and #RepresentationMatters movements. These hashtags advocate for POC authors’ writing stories for young people in their communities, demanding that publishers work harder at elevating diverse stories. These movements, however, have veered into the territory of deciding which POC stories in Young Adult literature are authentic enough. One of the many novels to receive negative criticism from well-meaning but misguided judgments on the tail of this movement is Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.
The biggest issue with TATBILB, it seems, is the fact that Lara Jean’s character does not serve any larger purpose to her ethnic community. Beyond that, some of the criticism leveled against Han is that her novel is “yet another person-of-color’s romance that revolves around white people” (Kondo). Additionally, there were quite a few angry comments floating around on Twitter over Han’s choice to make Lara Jean a character of mixed race (Korean and white). Moreover, readers complained that while she is a protagonist-of-color, her Korean culture takes a back seat in the narrative; she seems to be surrounded by an entirely white cast of characters. All of these accusations, of course, are true. These legitimate concerns aside, Lara Jean nonetheless represents a good representation of a protagonist-of-color.
Despite the truth of these critiques, it is too simplistic (and frankly, could be classified as a form of gatekeeping) to say that Lara Jean cannot join the pantheon of great YA protagonists of color. While she does not do anything of significance for her ethnic group within the novel, her Korean culture still helps shape the narrative in a way that would not have been possible had she been written white. Additionally, as a person of mixed race, Lara Jean sees the world in a way that is completely different from a person born into a fully Korean or fully white family, and that difference comes with its own pitfalls and perks as well. To say that Lara Jean’s story is not of value to young readers-of-color is, at its core, a lazy evaluation of a good story, and part of the problem ascribed to Young Adult literature overall.
3. YA Criticism and Educational Narratives
One of the largest issues in criticizing Young Adult literature is that there seems to be only two approaches. In her book examining criticism of Young Adult and Children’s literature, Amie Doughty notes that the two schools of thought believe that literature for young people can only be criticized from either an educational or a literary standpoint (Doughty 2). Even from a literary standpoint, a lot of the early criticism of YA was based on how the readers responded to what they read, which was not such a far cry from the educational criticism. Only in recent years has YA criticism expanded to allow for other forms of literary criticism, including critical race theory. In expecting Lara Jean to serve the role of a spokesperson for Korean Americans, critics are solely looking at this novel through the lens of educational criticism, which does not fit the novel’s theme or message in the slightest. Additionally, this imposes the expectation onto protagonists of color (and, consequently, teens of color) that they must experience and fight back against oppression in order for their stories to matter.
This drive toward activism in Young Adult and Children’s literature is indicative of a larger movement in society toward child and teen activists. From Greta Thunberg taking on President Donald Trump on Twitter over climate change, to Amariyanna Copeny (otherwise known as Little Miss Flint) advocating for clean water in her hometown, it is no wonder that literature is following the arc of history. Browsing the shelves of bookstores, shoppers will see quite a few new titles featuring young protagonists who might resemble real-life youth activists. Kathy G. Short asserts that it is vital for children and young adults to see activism in their literature because, “these books provide demonstrations that children, not just adults, are responsible for and capable of social action” (Short 137). However, it should not be the job of children and teenagers to fix the systems that oppress them, and it should not have to be part of their leisure reading. Kids are smart enough to see inequality in the world and know it is wrong. The literature created for them should offer a reprieve from the trauma of being a person of color in America, rather than just producing stories in which their struggles are somehow solved by someone they may not feel capable of matching up to.
Activism and social justice is important to address in YA literature as it can help raise adults who are mindful of the world around them and the advantages or disadvantages afforded to others. However, bringing back into consideration the fact that there are so few books being published featuring protagonists of color, it is concerning to see that the market is being flooded by books featuring characters of color primarily as activists. Again, kids and teens use the examples they see in literature and popular culture as a measure for who they should be, and when children and teens of color see themselves primarily or solely represented in media as activists, the message being sent is that activism is the only way their story carries any importance. The message being sent is that their stories are only relevant in correlation to the level of oppression they experience and fight back against it. This societal inclination toward young activist narratives is what Lara Jean counters in TATBILB.
4. Race and Culture in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before
Jenny Han’s 2014 novel To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before follows the story of starry-eyed romantic Lara Jean Song-Covey, a sixteen-year-old high school girl who writes parting letters to the boys she falls in love with to help herself get over the unreciprocated feelings. This coping mechanism seems to work for a time, until the letters are sent to their designated recipients without Lara Jean’s knowledge. Lara Jean finds herself having to deal with the fallout of every boy she has ever loved finding out exactly how she felt about them—including her older sister Margot’s ex-boyfriend, Josh. In order to avoid the disintegration of her most valued relationships, Lara Jean agrees to be the fake girlfriend of Peter Kavinsky— her middle school crush and one of the letter recipients— to convince Josh that she is over him. This ploy is executed perhaps too perfectly, as Lara Jean soon realizes she is beginning to have real feelings for her fake boyfriend.
Given the sitcom-esque plotline, it would be hard to find exactly where culture plays a definitive role in this novel. To be transparent, culture does not have a prominent purpose in the plot of the story. In fact, Lara Jean only explicitly discusses her Korean background ten times throughout the entire novel. It would be simple to equate quantity with quality in this case and dismiss the whole book as race-baiting readers into reading about a character who could have been written white without changing any of the plot. However, in order to truly understand why this book holds value for readers, one must look at how Lara Jean addresses culture versus how many times she does it. In doing this, readers will find that Lara Jean’s experience as a mixed-race person is not treated in an exotified way, but as an integral part of who she is and how she views the world. Additionally, in writing Lara Jean outside of the realm of a teenage activist, Han’s presentation of her character allows teens to see that their story matters outside of the ways in which they are expected to represent and liberate their ethnic community.
Beginning in the first few pages of the novel, Lara Jean explicitly states the way in which she feels influenced by her Korean side despite the death of her mother. She and her sisters refer to themselves as the Song girls rather than the Covey girls, choosing their mother’s Korean surname rather than their father’s white one, because “[M]om used to say that she was a Song girl for life, and Margot said then we should be too…[;] we look more Song than Covey, anyway, more Korean than white” (Han 9). From a simple visibility standpoint, Lara Jean is a person of color no matter that she is half white. Even Lara Jean's presentation as Korean is a major point toward her merit as a character who promotes representation in her genre. Later in the book, when she is considering her options for Halloween costumes, Lara Jean remarks that,
“there are very limited options for Asian girls on Halloween. Like one year I went as Velma from Scooby-Doo, but people just asked me if I was a manga character… This year I’m going as Cho Chang from Harry Potter… I’m not going to win any contests, but at least people will know what I am. I wish I never have to answer a What are you? question ever again.” (Han 225)
Lara Jean is not unaffected by the way that she physically appears Asian and is, therefore, not immune to microaggressions that readers experience in their own lives as well. In her book on people of mixed heritage in YA, Nancy Reynolds states that in the experience of many children of mixed heritage, the half that is not white becomes the definitive identity upon first glance (Reynolds 20-21). This means that Lara Jean being half white offers her little to none of the privilege many seem to think it does, and because she is visibly “otherized,” she is treated accordingly. This makes her relatable to any teen of color who tried to dress as Harry or Hermione for Halloween and was mistaken for Angela, Cho, or Dean. They will have felt this particular pain, resonating with repulsion at the question of “what are you?” She is not feeling aversion to being a person of color or ashamed of heritage, but rather she does not want to encounter assumptions made on the basis of racial presentation. Lara Jean in these passages is not talking explicitly about her culture; no mention appears of hanboks or kimchi, yet she is still all too aware of her status as an Asian American.
Lara Jean’s resentment at the question of “what are you?” especially connects with her mixed-race background. In her essay on biracial characters in Children’s Literature, Amina Chaudhri claims,
Whether real or fictional, anyone who has to answer the “what are you?” question, who must explain appearance, cultural connection, linguistic difference, struggle to prove group membership, has been socially and emotionally isolated because of difference, or been denied voice and agency, does so because of deeply embedded limited perceptions of race and culture. (Chaudhri 97)
Lara Jean’s apparent disdain at being asked “what are you?” is so clearly rooted in her being of mixed-race heritage. One could ask why Han did not choose to make the novel include more of Lara Jean’s struggle as a mixed kid. Again, Chaudhri notes that “it is problematic when the repetition of these themes [of internalized racial confusion] creates a one-dimensional, essentialized representation that ends up being understood as inherent to mixed-race identity” (Chaudhri 97). Turning the character of Lara Jean into a teen girl in crisis over her identity is as good as telling young audiences that the only way mixed kids can exist is in a state of perpetual confusion over who they really are. While Lara Jean does resent the question of “what are you?,” it is not because it makes her question who she is, but rather because she knows her identity goes beyond just the racialized way in which others view her. Moreover, while her Korean heritage is important to her, it is not the only significant thing about her.
In the few times that Lara Jean talks openly about her culture, she does not ever exotify it or assume that her audience would not be able to identify with what she is talking about. It is not that she does not explain things, because she does. What she does not do is make the blending of her cultural background into a big event. In a passage where she describes her father’s making Korean food for her sisters and her, Lara Jean simply says, “When my dad has a day off, he cooks Korean food… it’s because he doesn’t want us to lose our connection with our Korean side… [He]’s made bo ssam, which is pork shoulder you slice up and then wrap in lettuce” (Han 98). The meal also includes store-bought kimchi, pepper paste, and soy sauce with scallions and ginger. At another point in the novel, Lara Jean and her sisters talk about yogurt drinks they can only buy at the Korean grocery store in town (Han 154). While these mentions of cultural food and drink seem to be mundane, they do hold significance. In her book on culturally responsive teaching, Zaretta Hammond discusses that young students will scaffold previous knowledge in order to grasp new concepts, and students of color in particular will use their culture as their scaffolding for new concepts (Hammond 15). It has been proven that this method of thinking helps strengthen student’s ability to connect with the world around them (Hammond 15). Because of this connection,critics would do well to remember that Lara Jean does not describe how her culture influences her everyday life because in her mind—and in the minds of readers who grew up in culturally diverse situations—it is ingrained in the way she sees the world. She does not take time to explain the cultural significance of food because it is just part of her regular life. To exotify her life would be to defamiliarize her from her own culture and experience as a mixed-race person. Doing so would certainly defamiliarize her character from an audience who most likely talk about their own cultures in the same way.
Finally, in one seemingly inconsequential moment, Han creates a space for Lara Jean’s character to find common ground with another character in terms of her culture. Lucas, one of the letter recipients, approaches Lara Jean in the hallway at school to return the letter and thank her for her honesty, but to tell her that he is gay and cannot reciprocate her feelings. However, he asks her not to share that information with others, explaining that, “‘I just let people believe what they please. I don’t feel like it’s my responsibility to quantify myself for them...As a biracial person, I’m sure people are always asking you what race you are, right?’” (Han 157). Lara Jean and Lucas bond over this shared experience of involuntarily bearing the weight of others expectations due to assumptions made without their knowledge. Lara Jean remarks that they share a smile and she feels “that wonderful sensation of being known by someone” (Han 157). While, at a first glance, this exchange seems insignificant or just a way of Han’s tying up loose ends with the other letter recipients, it is actually a deliberate move to deconstruct how teenagers are impacted by the boundaries that society creates in labelling people with or without their knowledge or permission. Because of the racialized world within the book and in reality, Lara Jean is constantly expected to “perform” mixed-racial experience, and Lucas is pressured to display his sexuality in either full Pride display or in receding into the closet. By finding a middle ground in which they are comfortable, both of these characters actively push against these expectations. They ultimately set the example for readers who identify with them and show that it is not necessary to perform trauma or be hurt in order to meet unrequested expectations. Chaudhri calls for a dismantling of racialized trauma in YA fiction: “What is needed now is representation of a diverse range of experiences that include non-traumatic circumstances” (103). When the publishing industry amplifies trauma narratives for teenagers of color, it effectively tells readers that their story is only valuable because of their trauma.
Ultimately, much of the pressure placed on Lara Jean’s character in the wake of the #OwnVoices movement originate with the expectation for characters and especially protagonists of color to perform oppression and trauma in order to make weighty statements about society, injustice, and the cause for equality. While these pursuits are inherently noble, they cannot be the only way in which the YA literature market reaches teens and children of color. Having established that these young readers take the examples presented in the media they consume and use them as a way through which to measure and perceive themselves, it is incredibly harmful to feed them narratives that solely place them at the center of revolutionary activism. Han’s evasion of the teenage activist trope means that, despite what she may have intended for her novel, she has created a story in which a mixed teenager of color’s story does not revolve around the trauma of being a POC, and her story is still important and worth reading. This counternarrative shows diverse readers that they do not have to save anyone for their story to matter—that their experience is important even if it is a silly story about being in love.
5. Conclusion
It seems like a YA romance novel turned Netflix adaptation is a strange hill to fight and die on, yet there is a reason that TATBILB skyrocketed in popularity the way it did. The market has the space and the audience for novels in which a person of color does nothing more than fall in love. Although adults may find it trivial and question the purpose of having a protagonist of color serve such a “fluffy” role, clearly something about Lara Jean resonated with many young people. Jenny Han’s novel creates a space in which teens of color could see themselves represented as they might feel in their daily lives. Lara Jean frets about school; she cares for her sisters and her father; she experiences racism and finds her own way to deal with it. A character like Lara Jean’s existence holds significance because of the ways in which she does not comply with the expectations set for protagonists of color. Consequently, she shows teenagers who identify with her character that trauma is not the only way in which a person of color’s story can matter.
While there are still those who may assert that Lara Jean’s Korean half is not nearly explored in enough detail through the novel, it is important to counter by noting that cultural heritage is not the only way in which a person of color’s story can matter. Lara Jean’s experience as a person of color is enough, even if she does not struggle with identity as a mixed person, and even if she is not violently attacked for her visible ethnicity. Setting up characters to compete in oppression contests only serves the purpose of, again, using trauma as justification for telling a POC story. Teenagers are aware of the world around them, and movements such as the March for Our Lives are a testament to that. This is not to say that stories including trauma and oppression in the POC experience are not important or worthy of reading, but more effort must be exerted to strike a balance. Movements such as #RepresentationMatters and #OwnVoices cannot veer into the realm of which experience is legitimate or worth publishing, because all stories involving POC main characters should be celebrated and elevated. Every teenager deserves to read a story where they can experience “that wonderful feeling of being known.”
Works Cited
Chaudri, Amina. “Growing Mixed/Up: Multiracial Identity in Children’s and Young Adult Literature.” Diversity in Youth Literature: Opening Doors Through Reading, edited by Jamie Campbell Naidoo et al, ALA Editions, 2013, pp. 95-104.
Cooperative Children’s Book Center. “Publishing Statistics on Children’s/YA Books About People of Color and First/Native Nations and by People of Color and First/Native Nations Authors and Illustrators.” University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, 2018. https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp. Accessed 13 Apr. 2020.
Delgado, Richard, et al. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. Third edition., New York University Press, 2017.
Doughty, Amie A. Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture: A Mosaic of Criticism. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=nlebk&AN=1339055&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Hammond, Zaretta, and Yvette Jackson. Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain : Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Corwin, a SAGE Company, 2015.
Han, Jenny. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Simon & Schuster, 2014.
Howard, Elizabeth Fitzgerald. “Authentic Multicultural Literature for Children: An Author’s Perspective.” The Multicultural Mirror:Cultural Substance in Literature for Children and Young Adults, edited by Merri V. Lindgren, Highsmith Press, 1991, pp. 91-100
Kondo, Oxford. “‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ Has Creepy Racial Things Going On.” Plan A Magazine, 31 Jan. 2020, https://planamag.com/to-all-the-boys-i-ve-loved-before-has-creepy-racial-things-going-on-ad513e4dd470.
Reynolds, Nancy Thalia. Mixed Heritage in Young Adult Literature. Scarecrow Press, 2009. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType =shib&db=nlebk&AN=267371&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Short, Kathy G. “The Right to Participate: Children as Activists in Picturebooks.” Critical Content Analysis of Children’s and Young Adult Literature, edited by Holly Johnson et al, Routledge, 2017, pp. 137-154.
Thomas, Ebony Elizabeth. The Dark Fantastic. New York University Press, 2019.