I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying: A Memoir

In this memoir, standup comedian Youngmi Mayer reflects on her childhood as a biracial kid in Saipan and her difficult adolescence, during which she had to parent her own parents. Her mother, who married Youngmi's father because he resembled white Jesus and the singer of The Bee Gees, used humor to comfort her daughter during moments of grief—repeating a family saying that "if you laugh while crying, hair grows out of your butthole." This saying, passed down through generations of Mayer's family, became a way to laugh through suffering. Mayer uses humor and irreverence to tell stories of her family's experiences during colonialism and war in Korea, and how those historical wounds continue to affect her years later as a single mother in New York City. Throughout the memoir, she interrogates whiteness, gender, and sexuality in America while exploring her parents' shortcomings. Mayer writes in hopes of passing on to readers what her family gave her: the ability to laugh while crying, understanding that these two states cannot exist without each other.