Stand Up, Yumi Chung!

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2020

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-14

Chapters 15-22

Chapters 23-30

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Cultural Expectations

Yumi’s aspiration to become a comedian would be difficult for any 11-year-old to achieve, but her task is made especially hard because of the cultural expectations that confront her. Her immigrant parents are overzealous in their determination to achieve the American dream for their children. Specifically, this means that Yumi is expected to get excellent grades, attend a top-ranked school, and pursue a prestigious career. These assumptions aren’t unique to the Chung family. They are common within the Korean American community and the Asian American community as a whole.

The reader is given a sense of the pressure that Yumi faces when her mother trades brags with a restaurant customer. He says, “You are blessed. Two obedient and smart daughters. My son here is so lazy. […] Last week, he told me he needs money to fly to New York to perform with his orchestra. Carnegie Hall or something” (22-23). Yumi adds the bitter observation, “So it begins. For the next good while, they go back and forth one-upping each other with their humblebrags” (22-23).

While these comments might indicate a battle of egos regarding whose child is better, the humblebrags indicate a parental obsession with excellence. This insistence on perfection has some real-world implications. As the reader learns later in the book, Mr. Chung wants his daughters to do well so they won’t suffer the financial uncertainty he experiences as a first-generation immigrant. The cultural expectation is that a family must sacrifice in the present to guarantee a better future for the next generation. Yumi’s parents aren’t above guilting her with a long list of the pleasures they have sacrificed to give their daughters a quality education.

The reality of the family’s financial struggle makes Yumi’s decision to follow her dreams doubly hard. She feels gratitude and love toward her parents for everything they have done for her, which translates to a desire to make them happy. Unfortunately, making them happy will also make her miserable. At the same time, pursuing her ambitions without regard for her parents’ feelings would make her equally miserable. Yumi is caught between a rock and a hard place regarding personal fulfillment and family obligations. Fortunately, the end of the book neatly resolves her dilemma by presenting a compromise that allows her to follow her interest in comedy while still pursuing academic excellence. The problem may emerge again one day when it’s time for Yumi to choose a career. Cultural expectations change slowly.

The Fear of Causing Disappointment

Yumi’s failure to choose one path in life over another is driven by her fear of disappointment. In an early conversation with her father, she becomes depressed when he rejects the idea of sending her to comedy camp. Yumi says, “His rejection feels like a giant anvil strapped around my ankle, yanking me off the cliff like in those vintage Road Runner cartoons. This is exactly why I never ask for anything. The disappointment hurts too much” (71).

Much as Yumi hates to be disappointed, she is even more frightened of causing disappointment to others. The approval of her parents and teachers weighs so heavily on her that she becomes incapacitated by the fear of not pleasing them. This is exemplified in her hagwon test performance. She second-guesses correct test answers and replaces them with errors. Although Mrs. Pak seems intimidating, she is also a keen observer of her students’ character and pinpoints Yumi’s anxiety immediately: “Your problem is that you’re hampered by your own indecision. Don’t you see? Your fear of disappointment is holding you back. Like handcuffs. You need to stop worrying about failure and trust in your own instincts” (78).

Yumi’s fear of causing disappointment reveals itself in another set of circumstances when Jasmine urges her camp students to use their embarrassing moments as a basis for comic routines. The thought of exposing her flaws mortifies Yumi. This would be a revelation to the whole world that she is a disappointment as a person. Yumi has never been taught that failure is a part of life. The pressure to please her parents in every way has never given her a chance to experiment and learn from her mistakes. Yumi demonstrates her disappointment phobia yet again when she arrives to tell Jasmine about her deception. Because her teacher is still fuming about a colleague’s deceit, Yumi fears an equally angry response if she confesses to her own duplicity, so she says nothing.

At every turn, as Yumi tries to avoid feeling the excruciating pain of disappointing others, she only amplifies a catastrophe in the making. Her embarrassing secret is revealed in the most publicly humiliating way possible when the real Kay Nakamura arrives for class. Fortunately, Yumi resolves her fear by the novel’s end when she takes the karaoke stage and announces all her mistakes to the restaurant patrons. In the process, she embraces her fallibility, allowing her to finally overcome her disappointment in herself.

The True Yumi

The book’s title may refer to more than Yumi’s aspirations as a stand-up comedian. The novel follows her journey to self-awareness and her dawning realization that she needs to stand up for herself. As an 11-year-old, it’s understandable that Yumi has unquestioningly absorbed the values of her family and community. However, she is now a preteen and wants to assert an identity distinct from what she has been taught to value about herself. Getting good grades is no longer good enough.

Yumi’s identity crisis begins in the first chapter with something as trivial as a hair perm. She wants a hairstyle that will express her identity instead of her mother’s wishes. As one might expect, she loses the battle: “So this is what disappointment smells like. Another perm. So much for the New Me” (3). Yumi frequently uses the phrase “new me” or “new start” to express her desire to make break with her past. Unfortunately, she gets tied even more firmly to the old me when her parents insist she apply for a scholarship to a school she detests.

From a psychological standpoint, it makes perfect sense that Yumi would escape to comedy camp to avoid the stifling atmosphere at home. She not only changes her venue but also assumes a false identity. She tells herself, “Here at camp, you are funny and confident and you fit in. As Kay Nakamura, you have nothing to be afraid of. This is just the thing you were hoping for: a fresh new start” (85). Of course, Yumi doesn’t have the advantage of hindsight when she utters those words. Her fresh new start changes nothing. She still fears disappointment and parental disapproval. Rather than confronting these issues, she dons a mask. The consequence is that Yumi creates even more problems for herself. After her ruse is exposed, she says, “My parents think I’m the most rotten daughter on the planet. And I might as well kiss my hopes of going to PAMS goodbye. And worst of all, I’m right back to who I was before. The Old Me” (222-23).

In seeking to escape the old version of herself through deception, Yumi finds herself more entrenched in that hated identity than before. Luckily, she sees the light through some wise advice offered by Jasmine and Mrs. Pak. Her stand-up routine on the karaoke stage articulates the lesson she needed to learn about authenticity: “‘But along the way, I learned that I don’t need to become the New Me.’ A hush falls over the room. ‘Instead, I need to be comfortable being the True Me’” (295). Making mistakes is part of being human, and Yumi is finally ready to embrace her true self, no matter who disapproves.