In what can only be described as psychological projection, Liu assumes he understands the Asian American psyche. What I am saying is that I can identify with the Asian American identity. I understand why it does what it does, it as if this identity and I were twin siblings, separated at birth but endowed with uncanny foreknowledge of each other's motives. The cautious reader would be well served in digesting this claim with a grain of salt. It is a precarious situation.
Nothing brings it out like other people's expectations and a sense of danger.
For someone as politically involved and culturally dissociated as Liu, politics may seem the essence of Asianness. But for my own apolitical parents, Asianness has far less to do with party politics than with pot-luck parties. For them, Asianness brings together people who enjoy the same foods, who share similar travel stories, who speak common languages, and who do not always feel completely in sync with Western values. Liu's representation of the Asian identity is not necessarily incorrect but is certainly incomplete. He has advertised the story of Asians but delivered only his own.