Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I think it can be easy to listen to the

premise of today's book and get, I don't know, defensive. It's by sociologist Bianca Mabutee

Louis, and the title is Unassimable, an Asian diasporic manifesto for the 21st century. It's an

argument against compulsory assimilation, particularly for Asians

in America. She puts forth in the book that not assimilating allows Asian communities to

exist without having to prove themselves to the dominant powers that be. In this interview with

Empires, Elsa Chang, Mabutei, Louis, says this isn't an argument for

isolationism, but instead building something outside of the status quo. It's pretty radical

stuff that even if I'm not sure I agree with it, makes for interesting food for thought. Give it a listen

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I grew up in Silicon Valley in the 80s and 90s.

There were already a ton of Asians in the area.

There are even more these days.

And I didn't process until years later how special growing up like that is in America.

When you're not white, but you're surrounded by people who look like you. So you can sort of

insulate yourself from feelings of exclusion because you don't feel all that different day to day.

Our next guest grew up in an area with an even higher concentration of Asians,

...