Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone

Tae Keller describes herself as an author who “writes about biracial girls trying to find their voices” (Keller, Tae. “About the Author.” Tae Keller, 2016). Her works often reflect her personal experiences as a biracial Korean American. Her mother, Nora Okja Keller, is also biracial, and she is the author of the prize-winning novel Comfort Woman (1997), a seminal work in Asian American fiction. 

In an interview, Tae Keller explains that she chose a small town in Florida as the setting for Jennifer Chan is Not Alone to explore how her characters experience living in a place where there are not a lot of Asians in the community (Ito, Erica. “Tae Keller on Jennifer Chan is Not Alone.” Mixed Asian Media, 2022). Keller grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, among a large population of multiracial and Asian people, and she drew upon how different her experiences were of being biracial on the mainland. In the novel, when Jennifer meets Mal for the first time, her first questions to Mal are, “So, what kind of Asian are you? […] I’m Chinese. There aren’t a lot of us here, are there?” (20-21). Jennifer is casual about her ethnic identity and directly observes the town’s lack of diversity, whereas Mal seems flustered to think of herself as different. Instead of identifying as part Korean, Mal distances herself from her own biracial identity and states, “My mom’s half-Korean” (20). The difference between the two girls’ responses reflects Mal’s experience of living in a town where she doesn’t see others like her. Part of the unspoken bond Mal has with Jennifer is in relating to their shared Asian background while at the same time acknowledging that there are different ways of being Asian. Keller adds the detail that Mal’s mother, Leah, aspired to be an Asian American professor, but the college where her husband found a teaching position didn’t have an Asian American department. Through Leah and Mal, Keller gestures to the feelings of isolation, the desire for a shared community, and the pressures of assimilation that biracial Asian Americans experience.

The novel explores the role of race and ethnicity in shaping identity, especially with regard to how Jennifer and Mal perceive themselves as well as how others perceive them. Jennifer’s experience of exclusion is related to her racial and ethnic identity, as evident in the children’s rumors about her knowing kung fu, Reagan’s flippant reference to her as a ninja, and Pete’s conflation of Chinese and Japanese identity. These instances in the novel highlight the racism and microaggressions that Asian Americans face, and Keller includes them in the novel’s larger themes of exclusion and bullying.