Paula Yoo: Identifying with Book Characters

You know, I saw myself in a lot of books whether or not they had Asian characters. It didn’t matter if the character was black, Latinx. It didn’t matter who the character was; there was always a universal connection I had, you know. I’m not a white girl who grew up on a farm in the countryside, but I identified with Fern’s sense of compassion and her sense of adventure and wanting to protect those who are helpless.

I identified with that and found that very important. That speaks to the core of my own personality. And it was the same with all the other books that I read. So, that’s, again, why I think representation is important because everyone doesn’t have to look like me in order for me to understand main themes in literature and character arcs and emotional journeys. But because I don’t see people who look like me, it tends to, I think, develop a subconscious bias where you start to think that people like me, we don’t matter. We’re not unique, you know, our experiences aren’t important, and that’s a dangerous thing.