Yellowface

June’s exchange at the event sparks some online discourse, and it is becoming more apparent that there is a disconnect between June’s identity and the subject of The Last Front. June attends fewer events now that the novel is a commercial success, only agreeing to those that she deems very prestigious or that offer her honorariums. However, the criticism calling her a faux ally bothers her and prompts her to accept an invitation to speak at the Chinese American Social Club of Rockville, Maryland. Although she arrives with high hopes, June soon regrets her decision when her host is visibly concerned upon learning that June is not Chinese.

June feels guilty upon seeing how excited many of the audience members are. She realizes that the entire community must believe that she is Chinese, and her guilt is only slightly assuaged by the ease of the reading and Q&A. While June struggles to eat the Chinese food that the group ordered, she meets a man whose uncle was a part of the Chinese Labour Corps. He praises June and her storytelling, stressing the importance of these stories being told. June feels truly guilty for the first time since stealing Athena’s manuscript and recognizes that it should be Athena receiving this praise and making these connections with her community. In a panic, June makes an excuse to leave and flees the event, refusing a ride from the host on her way out.

The Last Front is nominated for many awards, and June sees it as a victory over her critics. No matter how much negative energy they send her way, she is still succeeding. The novel is also getting attention outside of the literary world, and inquiries from Hollywood begin trickling in. June meets with Greenhouse Productions to discuss a possible film adaptation. June believes that the interest is coming from Jasmine Zhang, a producer-director who nearly won an Oscar the previous year for a film about Chinese migrant workers in San Francisco. Her meeting, however, is with the other two producers, Justin and Harvey.

June is pleased to hear that they want to keep the film faithful to its source material, but it becomes clear that they have real no interest in doing so. Most of their suggestions are steeped in racism with the intent of whitewashing. They argue that the film needs to be palatable to American audiences, meaning that they need to expand the white characters’ roles while simultaneously minimizing the use of the Chinese language and accents among the Chinese characters. June offers little pushback and is complimented on her willingness to listen to these potential changes. After the meeting, June hopes to see the novel succeed as a film. She commits to dreaming big, wondering why she cannot enjoy the success so many others have.

The criticisms of The Last Front increase and morph into attacks. The most substantial one is from a Twitter account called @AthenaLiusGhost, which claims to be Athena and accuses June of stealing The Last Front. This begins a larger discourse in which people take the side of either accusing June of being a racist plagiarist or the side of caution, waiting for real evidence to surface to prove her innocence or guilt. Brett ensures June that it will blow over, but she is not convinced. He publicly defends her, but Eden Press will not. They do not make a statement one way or the other, which June is told to take as a sign that they are committed to her. June becomes obsessed with the comments and analyzes the criticisms to see if they attack her or Athena’s writing.

Many call The Last Front a white savior story and pick instances from the novel and June’s old Goodreads reviews to prove her racism. Eden’s Angels and Brett encourage her to block it out, but she cannot. As more hate pours in, June remembers a time when Athena faced online hate as well. She was criticized for dating a white man, and the comments she received were vile, laden with violence and hate. It rattled Athena to the point that she didn’t even feel safe in her own home. June can finally sympathize with her and understands the loss of security and the impossibility of just blocking it all out.

June attends a literary festival in Virginia and sits on a panel about writing East Asia-inspired stories. June experiences a frosty reception and is interrupted when she mispronounces another panelist’s name. Despite attempts to play it off, the panel descends into a negative experience for June as she is at first criticized for her presence on the panel, being a white woman, and then accused by Diana Qiu of stealing Athena’s work. Civility is restored but neither Diana nor June speak for the rest of the hour-long panel. When it concludes, June leaves immediately, texting Eden’s Angels to gossip and dehumanize Diana Qiu and her work to make herself feel better.

June takes a break from the city and goes to Alexandria to have dinner with her sister, Rory, and brother-in-law, Tom. June and Rory aren’t particularly close, as she and their mother have always been critical and unsupportive of June’s dream to be a successful author. While there, June shares little about The Last Front, as neither Tom nor Rory has read it, and informs them about the negative comments she has been receiving online. June asks Tom, an IT technician, if he would be able to track an IP address to give her a general location of where her main critic, @AthenaLiusGhost, is based. Tom cannot make promises but agrees to help her as much as he can.

Upon returning home, June creates a website filled with “proof” of her wrongdoing and sends it to @AthenaLiusGhost through an account titled @LazarusAthena. While June waits for @AthenaLiusGhost to fall into the trap, she reads through the growing criticism building about Athena. Many are bringing her past work and personal politics into light, criticizing her treatment of some historical events and her stance on the People’s Republic of China. Some call her a Han supremacist and express concern for her lack of inclusion of Chinese minority characters. June witnesses the public’s delight at being able to tear someone down: “She was mortal after all, they’re thinking. She was just like us. And in destroying her, we create an audience; we create moral authority for ourselves” (174). No one is safe from character assassination, June realizes. When @AthenaLiusGhost finally responds to June’s DM and visits the website, June sends the IP address to Tom, who informs her that the account holder lives in Fairfax. June instantly knows who runs the account: It could only be Athena’s ex-boyfriend, Geoffrey Carlino.

Geoff and Athena were the hot, young literary couple taking the world by storm until their split. The two broke up when Geoff’s debut novel flopped, and he took it to heart. He published irrational defenses of his work, which to many were racist narratives disguised as sci-fi. Accompanying scandals involving racist behaviors and statements sank their relationship. Confident that her primary Twitter detractor is Geoff, June texts him to meet or she will reveal his secret account. Geoff arrives and reveals that Athena spoke with him about The Last Front while they were dating. He has seen her research and learned about the history behind the novel she wrote. He accuses her of not only stealing Athena’s work but lying about the nature of their friendship to bolster her public image.

Geoff believes that he has the upper hand against June despite her not admitting to anything. He attempts to extort her, suggesting that they could both profit off the novel in exchange for his silence. June reveals that she has been recording the entire conversation and threatens to publish it, confident that he will stop the attacks. Later, June posts her first public response to the scandal. She receives some pushback, but with Geoff’s account deleted, the charge against her loses momentum. The criticisms dwindle, and June once again basks in praise and the news that The Last Front’s film rights will be optioned by Greenhouse Productions.