Summary

In Chapter 10, named after “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” several of Phuc’s friends had enlisted in the military. Phuc got a T-shirt with Malcolm X printed on it. He wore the shirt to school and his history teacher suggested that he read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Phuc read it and struggled to understand how racism impacted his life. He worked at the gas station with Liam. One day, a regular named Dan made fun of Phuc for reading The Iliad when he thought Asian people were supposed to be good at math. Phuc wrote an editorial for the school paper about Dan’s racism. He thought it was simply that Dan was a bad person. He did not want to internalize Malcom X’s argument that there was a larger institutional issue.

The fall of his senior year, Phuc applied to...