1950年代，作者 Fatima Shaik 的父親從收荒匠的卡車裡搶救了一批被雨水浸泡過的破爛賬本。這些法語手寫的賬本和其他一些差點被當作廢紙處理掉的文件，屬於位於Treme的一個叫經濟互助組織 (Economy and Mutual Aid Association) 的機構 (其法語原名為 Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle)。直到1997年，Fatima才開始著手研究這些從她記事起就堆放在家裡的破舊資料，她沒想到揭開的竟是一段從1836年開啟的浩瀚歷史。
經過二十多年的研究，Shaik 通過對這些賬本的深入研究，將一段關於紐奧良社會活動家和公民的失落的歷史重新帶到世人面前。
面對白人社會的壓迫，紐奧良地區的黑人成立互助社團解決社區發展中遇到的難題。這個以黑人創辦的保險公司、殯儀服務為核心的互助組織歷經蓄奴時期、內戰、重建及其失敗、吉姆·克勞恐怖主義，匯集了教育家、商人、軍人、藝術家等等各階層人士，為選舉權、受教育權等等基本權益進行抗爭。

Asian Americans inhabit a purgatorial status: neither white enough nor black enough, unmentioned in most conversations about racial identity. In the popular imagination, Asian Americans are all high-achieving professionals. But in reality, this is the most economically divided group in the country, a tenuous alliance of people with roots from South Asia to East Asia to the Pacific Islands, from tech millionaires to service industry laborers. How do we speak honestly about the Asian American condition--if such a thing exists?
Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively confronts this thorny subject, blending memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose the truth of racialized consciousness in America. Binding these essays together is Hong's theory of "minor feelings." As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality--when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity.
With sly humor and a poet's searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and artmaking, and to family and female friendship. A radically honest work of art,
forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche--and of a writer's search to both uncover and speak the truth.