Kenji Yoshino - Covering: The Hidden Assault on American Civil Rights

[Kenji] Yoshino offers his personal search for authenticity as an encouragement for everyone to think deeply about the ways in which all of us have covered our true selves. Engaging we really do feel newly inspired.

The New York Times Book Review

Yoshino argues convincingly in this book, part luminous, moving memoir, part cogent, level-headed treatise, that covering is going to become more and more a civil rights issue as the nation (and the nations courts) struggle with an increasingly multiethnic America.

San Francisco Chronicle

[A] remarkable debut. [Yoshinos] sense of justice is pragmatic and infectious.

Time Out New York

[Covering] is, at heart, a memoir, written by a legal scholar who might have missed his calling as a poet. Powerful.

The Village Voice

Whod expect a book on civil rights and the law to be warmly personal, elegantly written, and threaded with memorable images? The beauty of Yoshinos book lies in the poetry he brings to telling his own story.

O: The Oprah Magazine

A lush, frequently elegant account Yoshino is a skillful narrative guide with a gift for describing the small dramas of still situations.

Legal Affairs

Yoshino introduces a new term into the American social lexicon: covering is the new passing, the new closet. Provocative and affecting, Covering challenges us to be as open with one another as Yoshino is willing to be with us.

The Boston Globe

The poignancy of [Yoshinos] personal victory is as compelling as any other piece of his treatise.

Los Angeles Times

[A] sober, rigorous and touching treatise on behalf of the disenfranchised that comes not a moment too soon In times to come, this book could be viewed as a seminal work.

Chicago Sun-Times

[Yoshino] eloquently weaves memoir and legal text in this lovely, moving, and persuasive book. Real, raw, and beautiful.

Edge Providence

[Yoshinos] ground-breaking studies in civil rights are the product of embracing rather than hiding his identity as a gay Asian-American. Part legal theory, part memoir, [Covering] is a unique achievement.

The American Lawyer

A valuable examination of an unexplored aspect of thwarted civil and social rights Among other virtues, the book reveals a sharp legal mind and a genuine literary talent.

Frontiers

Yoshinos memoir-cum-treatise combines a provocative examination of the current state of civil rights with an account of his experiences as a gay Japanese-American.

The New Yorker

[A] lyrical and thought-provoking book significant.

The New Republic

[A] brilliant work of art Yoshino skillfully incorporates storytelling into a sharp critique. Yoshinos writing and analysis are first-rate. A truly superb piece of work.

Legal Times

Seldom has a work of such careful intellectual rigor and fairness been so deeply touching. [Yoshino] masterfully melds autobiography and legal scholarship. As healing as it is polemical, this book has tremendous potential as a touchstone in the struggle for universal human dignity.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

[A] brilliantly argued and engaging book a finely grained memoir of young mans struggles to come to terms with his sexuality a powerful argument for a whole new way of thinking about civil rights and how our society deals with difference. Kenji Yoshino is the face and the voice of the new civil rights.

B ARBARA E HRENREICH , author of Nickel and Dimed

An important, compelling new way to understand civil rights law With great bravery and honesty, [Yoshino] has forged his argument from the cauldron of his own experience. In clear, lyrical prose, Coveringquite literally brings the law to life. [A book] as convincing to the spirit as it is to the mind.

A DAM H ASLETT , author of You Are Not A Stranger Here

Often moving and always clarifying an original, arresting account of identity and authenticity in American culture.

K. A NTHONY A PPIAH , author of The Ethics of Identity
and Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor
of Philosophy at Princeton University

This stunning book introduces three faces of the remarkable Kenji Yoshino: a writer of poetic beauty; a soul of rare reflectivity and decency; and a brilliant lawyer and scholar, passionately committed to uncovering human rights. Like W.E.B. Du Boiss The Souls of Black Folk and Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique, this book fearlessly blends gripping narrative with insightful analysis to further the cause of human emancipation. And like those classics, it should explode into Americas consciousness.

H AROLD H ONGJU K OH , Dean, Yale Law School and
former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy,
Human Rights and Labor

Magnificent so eloquently and powerfully written I literally could not put it down. Sweeping in breadth, brilliantly argued, and filled with insight, humor, and erudition This extraordinary book is many things at once: an intensely moving personal memoir; a breathtaking historical and cultural synthesis of assimilation and American equality law; an explosive new paradigm for transcending the morass of identity politics; and in parts, pure poetry. No one interested in civil rights, sexuality, discriminationor simply human flourishingcan afford to miss it.

A MY C HUA , author of World on Fire

In this stunning, original book, Kenji Yoshino demonstrates that the struggle for gay rights is not only a struggle to liberate gaysit is a struggle to free [all of us] from the pressures and temptations to cover vital aspects of ourselves and deprive ourselves and others of our full humanity. [Yoshino] shows why gay rights is so controversial at present, why covering is the issue of contention, and why the covering demand, universal in application, is the civil rights issue of our time. This is a beautifully written, brilliant and hopeful book, offering a new understanding of what is at stake in our fight for human rights.

C AROL G ILLIGAN , author of In a Different Voice