Among other things, Emiko Jean’s Mika in Real Life is an immigrant novel. This is as formulaic a genre as it can possibly get. In it, immigrant parents always want their children to be successful and marry somebody from the same immigrant community. The children always see this as a terrible imposition and resist because they want to be free and American, which for some undefined reason always translates into being a lazy layabout who is mega unsuccessful in one’s personal life. One would think America was made so attractive for immigrants by the efforts of infantilized and unattached pothead couch surfers.
Ethnicity and culture are talked up a storm in these books with characters feeling invariably aggrieved that theirs are somehow mysteriously disrespected in America. What culture means to them is limited to a few words in their parents’ language and a few consumer choices. “My adoptive parents never even took me to an ethnic grocery store!” complains a US-born daughter of a Japanese woman and a white man who was adopted by a white couple at birth. The readers are invited to assume that she would have had a mystic experience of heightened ancestry woo-woos in the presence of packaged “ethnic” foods. Since the girl is half-white, one gathers she has white ethnic raptures every time she finds herself in Walmart but that fascinating topic is never explored in the novel.
Jean’s protagonist Mika Suzuki is a faithful rendering of this formula. She feels persecuted by the unquenched racism of white men, yet reacts with horror to her mother’s efforts to introduce her to Japanese dating prospects. At the same time, Mika throws herself at every white dude in existence, and it’s clear that her daughter will take the same path.
Mika’s Japanese parents are portrayed as emotionally stunted, and this is typical of the genre. Overall, immigrant novels do no favors for immigrants, making them look whiny, tedious, and unable to contribute anything beyond a long list of vague grievances.
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