Asian-Americans gain their own life back after going off script. Going off script equates to being a true version of oneself, with less conformity to fit into a box. Any opportunity to break the norm is a chance to influence change in one's own life. Similarly, when characters are dead the opportunity to explore individual wants and dreams arises. Being dead is a solidified period of being able to live without the pressure to place themselves into society's constraints. Most characters in the novel spend time with their family or experience what life is like away from the labels. Willis shows how being a dead character can allow for personal growth, “She saw you back there, not in the light, even when you weren’t able to see yourself” (Yu, 169). Within this break from Willis’ typical programming, he can find someone who saw him through the constraints of his box for what he was. One of the biggest issues that the characters face in Interior Chinatown is the lack of belonging within their own world. Their decisions over where to live, what job to get, and how they should act are not decided by their own free will but are created for them by what fits in a white perspective of Asian-American lives. Willis faced the societal norm of conformity. It is easy for others to encourage him to be more than what society depicts, but it is harder for Willis to see past the limitations of his box. Only when Willis can carry out what is supposed to be the peak role for him, does he start to understand his reality, “The role of a lifetime is one you can never bring yourself to quit...you are trapped. Doing well is the trap” (Yu, 180). The characters in Interior Chinatown show the permanent racial standards Asian-Americans face while living in the United States. The topic of “perpetual foreigners” (Yu, 238) is a synopsis of these racial standards. Yu proves how being an Asian in America does not equate to being recognized as an American citizen. Asian-Americans are not often recognized as just being American, but there is a consistent assumption that they could not be born within the United States. This idea extends to more minority groups that are often grouped together based on ignorance and physical attributes. This stereotyping leads to the constraints of Asian-American's roles within America. Not only are they not instantly thought of as equal to other citizens, but they are forced to base their actions on how white people think they should act versus having the freedom to simply live and exist.
I agree that dying in the show represents an opportunity for characters to have free time and grow, and at the same time I feel like it also represents the invisibility of Asian-Americans in society. In the show, they die and come back weeks later, when no one will remember them. As Older Brother says about Willis, “He killed countless Asian men. Killed them and then, six weeks later, became them again, as if nothing had happened, as if he had no memory or remorse. He allowed it to happen, allowed himself to become Generic” (Yu 238). They can die many times, and the viewers won’t remember them. They’ll just be another generic Asian, like all the others. This symbolizes the idea of Asian-Americans being stuck in a box, as even “Kung Fu Guy is just another form of Generic Asian Man” (Yu 245). No matter how high up they go in their ladder of options, they’re still not much different than the others. So, while being dead in the show represents an opportunity to think and do what they want, it’s also another of Yu’s methods that portrays the way that Asian-Americans do not seem to fit in America’s “Black & White” society.
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