JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Comedian, writer and podcast host Youngmi Mayer has gone viral for her ironic jokes about race like this one from TikTok.
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YOUNGMI MAYER: Why did Asian people reveal that teriyaki sauce is just soy sauce and sugar? We were charging $8 a bottle for that. Don't tell them about Korean barbecue marinade.
SUMMERS: In her new memoir, she pulls back the curtain on her upbringing and fleshes out her family stories, although she apparently lost a battle with her publishers on the title.
MAYER: There's a Korean saying that goes, if you laugh while crying, hair will grow out of your buttocks (laughter). And I wanted that to be the title, but they said no.
SUMMERS: So, the book is called "I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying." In the book, she paints a picture of a tumultuous childhood spent in Korea with her mother and a white American father. Mayer writes about her parents' obsession with her weight, dealing with her biracial identity and navigating life with parents who struggled with their own depression and generational trauma.
MAYER: My parents were emotionally the children, and I was the adult. I think growing up with parents like that was a little difficult. And I think it's also something that's, like, kind of relatable. And even though I'm, like, Asian and I grew up in Korea, I've heard a lot of, like, Asian Americans talking about this, whether it's, like, the child of immigrants having to, like, fill out tax forms when you're 8 years old or something like that.
SUMMERS: It's clear that for her, laughter has been a lifeline.
MAYER: I mean, my personal theory - I don't know how true this is - like, people need to laugh to make things feel better, and I think that's just every human being and not just, like, a cultural thing or a Korean thing. But there's this other layer that I see so much in my Korean family - that laughter is what has really helped them sort of live through all of the trauma not only that happened in my family personally, but, like, that happened in our culture.
SUMMERS: I asked Youngmi Mayer how she thinks about her relationship with her parents today.
MAYER: You know, so many people asked me, like, how this is going to be, like, accepted by my parents, which is obviously very stressful for me. But...
SUMMERS: Sure.
MAYER: The strange thing is that I don't think what I said about my parents is bad, and I don't think it's unusual. I personally believe that the things that I talk about in this book are quite, you know, normal, or they happen all the time. And they're regular things that most people's parents did to them, too. And maybe the issue is that most people go through these things and they just do not want to talk about them openly. And for me to do so - you know, maybe if they don't want to talk about it, they'll feel better hearing somebody else say it.
SUMMERS: I also want to talk about your career in comedy 'cause you tell the story in the book of when you first said out loud and acknowledged openly that you wanted to do stand-up comedy. What was that conversation like?
MAYER: So basically, my entire life, I had this dream of being a stand-up comedian, and I never said it out loud. I never even told, like, my closest friends. You know, I was married for 10 years. My ex-husband had no idea. And one day in therapy, you know, I told my therapist, like, I think I want to get divorced. And she had seen it coming, so she was like, oh, yeah, that's understandable. And then I said, I want to do stand-up comedy, and she was like, what are you talking about? You've never talked about that. And I was like, I've literally never said that to anybody in my entire life. That was the first time.
I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that, all my life, I was raised to believe that I didn't deserve to live my life and, like, do what I want to do. I think I really was taught that I was put on this Earth to help other people and whatever I wanted was selfish and embarrassing. And I should be ashamed for wanting to be seen in any way 'cause that's, you know, like, prideful or egotistical. And so from that day forward, I literally - like, the next day, I started doing open mics and doing stand-up...
SUMMERS: It was that quick?
MAYER: ... And then - yeah. I was literally - like, I think I, like, signed up for an open mic on my phone, like, on my way down, like, to the lobby. I find it really interesting thinking back on that, too.
SUMMERS: Youngmi, before we let you go, I do want to ask you - the book's out in the world. What do you hope people take away from it?
MAYER: I hope people relate to it. If they relate to it, I hope that they understand that it's OK and it's nothing to feel bad about. I guess it's related to working in these, like, Asian identity culture spaces for so long. But something that I hear over and over again is, like, you know, I'm really glad that you did this comedy video 'cause this is how I feel, and, like, I thought that I was the only one that went through this. Like, I thought I was the only Asian person that has a neck tattoo or, you know, like, didn't go to college and is really bad at math or has a drug problem.
And I was like, of course not. There's a bunch of Asian people that do that in Southern California, but - I'm just kidding. That's a joke. But, you know, like, of course you're not the only one. And, like, what is this idea or this pressure that we feel that we think that we have to pretend that we're the only one? If those people are out there feeling bad about themselves, like, they have that takeaway.
SUMMERS: Youngmi Mayer's memoir, "I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying," is out now. Youngmi, thank you so much.
MAYER: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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