Evan Pao’s Secret Battle, Wendy Wanlong Shan
In 1860 there were about 35,000 Chinese in the United States, about 200 of whom lived in the eastern part of the country. Of these, 50 to 60 served in the Civil War. Most were Union soldiers, but there were exceptions like Christopher Bunker, son of Chan, the eldest son of the famous conjoined twins Chan and Enne Bunker, and Stephen Bunker, son of Enne. ) and Confederate soldiers.
I’ve always been interested in 19th-century Chinese-American history, and I googled this fact as Evan Pao did on “China” and “American Civil War.”
“The Secret Battle of Evan Pao” by Wendy Wan-Long Shang (Asian/Pacific American Award winner for “The Great Wall of Lucy Wu”) is about a 12-year-old Chinese-American boy. In the mostly white town of Haddington, Virginia, in response to a teacher’s suggestion to be a “scribe” instead of a soldier for the school’s annual “Battlefield Day,” he learned that there were Chinese soldiers in the Civil War. I discovered that This novel points to the errors of America’s educational system, which has suppressed the stories of marginalized people through either ignorance or malice, and often a powerful combination of both. This serves as a heady backdrop to the emotional core of the book. The quiet strain of non-white families living in white communities refuses to acknowledge their full humanity, instead viewing them as curiosities and intruders.
Evan simply wants to do what his friends do (to be fair, pretending to be a losing army). This leads him into some complicated history. Librarians and educators will be relieved to hear that the book emphasizes the importance of primary sources. And Evan recognizes that, though his steps toward knowledge are slow, prying every slice of history through the claws of those who try to suppress it is worth the effort.
The novel is mild in its assessment of white bullies in a mostly white town, but a spike of righteous anger sticks out. Evan’s older sister, Celeste, is a bolt of rage over the barrage of unintentional microaggressions against the Pao family delivered at breakneck speed in the first few chapters. A targeted attack soon follows. Refreshingly, the Pao family has no interest in maintaining their quiet dignity in the face of these slings and arrows. A boy in Evan’s class who shoots bullets through the living room window, a useless cop (who always turns into a little boy) who happily leaves a white boy alone off the hook.
Expressions of interest can be equally offensive.When a boy decides he’s in love with Celeste—”He I think he likes me Hmm. … I’m just a cool, exotic idea to him.
“Evan Pao’s Secret Battle” is a thoughtful, nuanced novel that treats white complacency and complicity with ease, and has relatable characters, but that’s certainly no excuse. Being a book, the ending is inevitably neat, and perhaps not quite obtained, but the lull of anger at the injustice continues after the reconciliation.
Thin Yin Cole’s The Legend of Aunt Poe won an Eisner Award and was a finalist for the National Book Awards.
Evan Pao’s Secret Battle, Wendy Wang Long Shan | | 11/1/2011 272 pages | Academic | $17.99 |