What is it like to grow up in the United States as an Asian immigrant male who was born in Manila, Philippines?

For Alex Tizon (the photo above was on the inside book cover), it was a lifelong struggle to overcome the shame he felt as he faced popular stereotypes that portray Asian men as weak, short, and unsexy, among other characteristics. While growing up, he collected memories and files of evidence that he believed refuted those stereotypes.

The culmination of his effort was Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self, a powerful, brilliantly illuminating and sometimes humorous story of his life and of Asian men in America.

A Pulitzer Prize winner and ground-breaking journalist at the Seattle Times, Tizon’s last career stop was the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication.

When a book touches me, I write to the author to share my appreciation. But I was shocked and saddened when I looked for Alex Tizon’s contact information and discovered he had died, of natural causes, in 2017, at 57.

You can get his book by clicking here.