Ann Friedman - Random stabs of extreme interestingness

I started reading Delia Cai's novel, Central Places, on a flight to visit my family in Iowa. Her protagonist, Audrey, has left her rural Illinois hometown for a life of matcha lattes and media parties in New York City, and she hasn't looked back. Now she's bringing home her white, city-native fiancé to spend Christmas with her Chinese-American immigrant parents. Don't mistake this setup for a Hallmark movie—it's a funny and nuanced look at what it means to exist in (and between) several worlds at once. 

I sat down in the virtual Panera booth with Delia to ask her five questions.

1. Moving from a rural area to a big city is an act that often splinters your adult timeline from that of your friends who did not move. What are some of anxieties that crop up on both sides?

It’s such a decisive splintering! The Facebook end of the timeline is crammed with weddings, babies, and houses; the Instagram end (for now) is an arm’s race of who’s at the cooler party or restaurant opening. What’s almost funny to me is the unspoken question that we’re all basically posting with any photo or status update online: am I doing this right? I kind of love how, no matter what life stage or the geographic location we’re in, everyone is looking for confirmation that this is the path. It’s comforting, right?

2. I'm wondering if you see domestic migration and international immigration as similar experiences, albeit on different scales? 

There are days when I see it as a sliding scale of distance—especially, say, if you can afford a regular plane ticket home. But I think there is something fundamentally different about being from a different country. National identity is the infrastructure for most of our sense of self. My parents have lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years and are citizens, and they don’t call themselves Americans, for example. And that certainly shapes the way they move through life. Ever since I was a kid, my family has kept our passports and like, my birth certificate in a literal safe in the basement. I thought everyone did this! From a young age, I learned that you cannot not have proof you’re supposed to be here.

3. How did you navigate stereotypes when picking plot points and character details? 

I worried a lot about this! At one point, I was really striving for some kind of mathematically precise way to do it, because I didn’t want it the book to be like, one of those post-Trump-election middle-America diner safaris, but also, I didn’t want it to be just another immigrant lunchbox story. Ultimately, what made the most sense was to ground characters and events in real-life inspirations. Every person in Central Places is based on someone I knew, or a composite of several real people. 

The racism element was sort of funny because I was drawing a lot from my experiences and from that of friends, where so many of the same microaggressions (or macro) happened that it truly did feel like a stereotypical convention. At the end of the day, it turns out racism is truly so unimaginative.

4. I am delighted by the Instagram account you curate for Central Places. Where do Chinese-American daughter memes and rural Midwest memes thematically intersect?

Midwestern culture and Chinese-American daughter energy both revolve around “niceness” for sure. So for better and for worse, any memes about keeping the family peace or politely squeaking “ope!” as you squeeze behind someone, to me, work from the same joke, which is that in both cultures, you are supposed to prefer death over the option of being perceived as unpleasant.

5. How important is it to make peace with where you're from, rather than simply leave it behind and say "good riddance"?

I think it’s difficult to fully appreciate your life—and how much it’s changed, especially for the better—if you haven’t thought deeply about what it was like before. But also, if you’re a transplant, you eventually get to a point when everyone important in your life has no idea what the first 20-ish years of your life was like, or what you were like. So in that vein, holding onto whatever ties you can to those who did witness that precious time of your life—I think that’s the best way to feel like a fully whole person. 

Bonus: In one sentence, explain the cultural importance of Panera.

Panera is FANCY yet democratic, and also, you could probably produce an entire thesis on American food trends through their rate of menu change over the years. 

This is not sponsored by any fast-casual restaurant chains. The only thing I'm plugging is Central Places.