I understand being a minority, and sometimes being unloved or being an outsider. I’m a second-generation Chinese immigrant in Malaysia. Still, I do understand what it’s like growing up a minority. That got me thinking, what does it mean to be an Asian American writer? What do I know about Asian American literature? I started wondering to myself, if I am an Asian American writer, what are my contributions to Asian American literature? I’m an immigrant yes, but I don’t fully understand all the nuances of growing up Asian American in the US.

It’s not that I disagree with the categorization, it’s just that I realized I had never thought of myself as an Asian American. YZ Chin: I had an OMG moment when my first book, Though I Get Home, was published, and I saw it shelved under Asian American fiction. There is a shadow of alternate realities that certain kinds of immigrants live with that not everyone understands. Can you talk about those differences and what it took to show this on the page? This is different than the more commonly written about American immigration story, where an immigrant comes to the US as a child, and faces discrimination growing up in white supremacy. Vanessa Chan: Edge Case explores the subject of so-called “skilled” immigration-the protagonist Edwina is seeking a green card to extend her life in the US. I chatted with Chin over Zoom about the antagonism of the green card application process, why writing by writers of color is always presumed autobiographical, and what it means to become an Asian American writer. Yet in Edge Case, Chin shows us that the monster here is not overt violence, it is simply the unknowable threat of expiring paperwork, and being beholden to unworthy corporations and immigration officers who hold one’s visa, and quite literally one’s life, in their hands. The so-called, “skilled” immigration-where an immigrant moves to the US later in life via a work visa-is a harrowing but dull landscape of forms, delays, and visa stamps.

Though I Get Home by YZ Chin