Summary:
The third section of the book begins with a black and white photograph of Hsu and another young man in a dorm room. Hsu then describes the experience of his first days at Berkeley. While Hsu writes that there were a lot of parties, he identifies himself as "straight-edge...a hard-core punk subculture that emerged in the early 1980s, premised on the principled, quasi-political rejection of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes" (p. 41).
In his first year, Hsu shares a dorm room with two friends from high school, Dave and Paraag, both of whom major in business and enjoy playing basketball. Hsu reveals that he judges his classmates based on their "musical sensibilities" and their taste in film and fashion (p. 42). Based on this criteria, he determines the people who “were cool and then people who weren’t” (p. 42).
Hsu then introduces Ken. As he writes, "the first time I met Ken, I hated him...He was a genre of person I actively avoided—mainstream.” Ken is a charismatic and handsome member of a fraternity at Berkeley. He and Hsu differ in many ways: unlike Hsu, Ken enjoys popular music like Pearl Jam and Dave Matthews Band, and as Hsu writes, “I was quiet, and Ken was loud" (p. 45). Hsu explains that Ken is from a Japanese-American family and grew up outside of San Diego. As Hsu notes, Japanese-Americans “can seem like aliens to other Asians, untroubled, largely oblivious to feeling like outsider” (p. 46). Because of these differences, Hsu initially keeps his distance from Ken.
One day, Ken asks Hsu to go shopping for clothes with him and compliments his fashion sense. Hsu agrees and the two go to “a cavernous vintage clothing store on Telegraph" (p. 49). Hsu later discovers that Ken wanted the clothes because his "frat was throwing a 1970s party, and his goal was to stand out by looking spectacularly garish" (p. 50). Nonetheless, Hsu and Ken begin to grow closer as friends and often take breaks from studying to smoke cigarettes together. They talk about a broad range of subjects and their bond continues to grow stronger.
Later, Ken invites Hsu to one of his frat parties. Hsu is uncomfortable but is pleased to have been invited. Here, Hsu transitions to a discussion of the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida. As Hsu indicates, “in the late 1980s... Derrida delivered a series of seminar lectures on the subject of friendship” (p. 56). Hsu notes that Derrida's work “is famously intricate, full of citations and abstruse terminology” (p. 59). Crucially, however, Derrida argued that friendship occurs when two individuals "choose knowing rather than being known" (p. 59). Moreover, friendship is premised on a connection that extends into the future such that in order to have friendship "one must love the future" (p. 59). Hsu then writes that he and Ken "lived for the future" and spent their time considering how they would leave their mark on the world (p. 60).
The book's fourth section begins with a photo of Ken smiling in a dorm room. Hsu is now in his sophomore year at Berkeley and has moved “into a two-bedroom bungalow on Dwight Way” with a friend named Anthony. To celebrate their new apartment, Hsu and Anthony have a house-warming party. Ken comes and brings a set of glasses as a gift, and Hsu remarks that “It seemed so practical and grown-up" (p. 65).
Hsu then introduces Sammi, who volunteers to help Hsu make his zines. Hsu is impressed with her taste in music, but struggles to understand the poetry that she writes. During this time, Hsu and Ken begin to take classes in the Rhetoric Department at Berkeley, where they study serious philosophical works by Heidegger and Wittgenstein. Ken and Hsu continue to spend time together, but Hsu is still surprised that he “could be friends with someone who liked Pearl Jam this much" (p. 70).
Eventually, Ken decides that he wants to write a piece for Hsu's zine. He gives Hsu a piece he wrote about the baseball player Wally Joyner, and Hsu tells him he will publish it but never does. As Hsu explains, “I felt a little bad excluding Ken from this world I was discovering” (p. 72).
One day while smoking cigarettes, Ken and Hsu begin talking about Ken's ex-girlfriend. Ken says that this girlfriend once told him that “My life has always been a dream” but that he had never felt like his own life was a dream (p. 74). Hsu is surprised, as he had held an idyllic view of Ken's life, but writes, “I realized how wrong I’d been to assume that his life was a breeze, shot through with invincible golden hues” (p. 75).
Hsu begins to get involved in political causes on campus. In particular, he gets involved in the fight to defend the practice of affirmative action, which was put in place to afford more opportunities to people from marginalized communities. He also volunteers to help members of the Black Panthers.
Hsu then reflects on how his racial identity differed from Ken's. As he writes, "we were both Asian, conscious of all the stereotypes about being low maintenance and good at school. Yet we had come from such different worlds" (p. 79). Hsu begins to work for a newspaper in Chinatown. Meanwhile, Ken auditions for a television show about fraternity culture called The Real World but is told that Asian-Americans "'don't have the personalities for it'" (p. 81).
Next, Hsu questions, “what does it mean to truly be yourself? (p. 82). To answer this question, he refers to Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor who studied the notion of "authenticity" and its relationship to human identity. As Hsu concludes, “being true to yourself cannot happen in a vacuum. Constructing your personality is a game, one that requires you to joust with the expectations of others” (p. 83).
The fourth second of the book ends with a scene in which Hsu and Ken walk on campus one day and see protestors who, defending the practice of affirmative action, have a sign that says “White Males Only" (p. 84). The sign prompts Hsu to consider his identity, and Hsu writes “we just didn’t know how to explain who we were, not in the space of a protest poster” (p. 84).
Analysis:
Part of the strength of Stay True is Hsu's ability to return to the perspective of himself as a young man and to honestly depict his thoughts and behaviors during this time. Indeed, many of us would rather forget our pretentious or off-putting youthful behavior – such as Hsu's critical attitude toward his peers' taste in music and culture – but Hsu does not refrain from including these elements in his characterization of himself. Instead, he adheres to the book title's aspiration to "stay true," even if the truth might not be entirely flattering. In so doing, he establishes himself as a relatable and reliable narrator.
These two sections of the book are chiefly concerned with Hsu's characterization of Ken and the description of their growing friendship. Hsu makes it clear that he never had the intention of becoming friends with Ken, and in fact, he actively disliked Ken before getting to know him. Hsu centers his description of Ken in his perceptions at the time, and to young Hsu, Ken is more a stock character than a real person. Hsu offers an idealized portrayal of Ken as a charismatic jock with a perfect life, including a “white and blond and conventionally pretty" girlfriend (p. 41). To readers, however, this portrayal is as much a reflection of Hsu as it is of Ken. Clearly, Hsu has made assumptions about Ken's life without actually taking the time to know him. Thus, their friendship is a process in which Hsu actually comes to know Ken and to look past the judgments he had once made.
Hsu also furthers his exploration into Asian-American identity in these sections by discussing the differences between his and Ken's experiences. As he notes, “Japanese American kids can seem like aliens to other Asians, untroubled, largely oblivious to feeling like outsiders" (p. 44). According to Hsu, many Japanese-American families have lived in the United States for many generations and have integrated into the broader American culture. Here, he observes that "we all look alike, until you realize we don’t, and then you begin feeling that nobody could possibly seem more different.” Here, Hsu highlights his objective to question what the category "Asian-American" might possibly signify – a question that he returns to several times throughout the book – but also what it means to be a racialized person in the United States.
Another prominent feature of Stay True is Hsu's reference to the work of various writers and scholars. In this section, he draws on the work of philosophers Jacques Derrida and Charles Taylor. Hsu's invocation of philosophical theory qualifies Stay True as a work of "autotheory." As writer Teresa Carmody explains, autotheory is "writing that combines theory or philosophy with autobiography" (par. 3). In recent years, writers like Maggie Nelson, Paul B. Preciado, and Hsu himself have turned to philosophy and theory in their work in order to shed light on their own lives. Throughout Stay True, Hsu invokes thinkers like Derrida and Taylor to help illuminate the significance of the narrative he is sharing. Thus, while Stay True is a wholly unique work, it is important to think of it as part of a broader trend in contemporary memoir and autobiography writing.
