Covering: The Hidden Assault On Our Civil Rights - Controversies and Reviews of The Book

Controversies and Reviews of The Book

One assumption made by this book is the fact that all minorities try to “cover” their identities. This assumes that all minorities are not proud of their identities and feel that they must hide it from society. Many reviews do point out the fact that it is something a lot of people do go through because society wants them to fit in a certain mold. Yoshino not only picks out the obvious but opens eyes to topics that are not well looked at and “exploring how the cultural demand to cover is different than those to pass or assimilate.”

The New York Time’s review was titled “The Conformist.” This review sums up how Kenji Yoshino lived his life. The reviews goes through the events in the book but does bring up the fact that racial covering is another strong approach to showing methods of covering:

"Though sexual orientation provides Yoshino with his primary example of the difficulties of covering, he also writes perceptively about his racial identity "I …flunked Japanese race""

The NY Times also believe that the book showed a personal search that can motivate all others to find their true selves. The review in O Magazine continued to praise this book:

"Who'd expect a book on civil rights and the law to be warmly personal, elegantly written, and threaded with memorable images? he beauty of Yoshino's book lies in the poetry he brings to telling his own story."

Russell K. Robinson, an acting professor at UCLA School of Law, could personally relate to Yoshino’s situation: he did not think the people close to him accepted his homosexuality. Throughout “Uncovering Covering,“ published in Northwestern University Law Review, Robinson has published his positive thoughts on Yoshino’s definition and interpretation of “covering.”

The book was chosen as the 2008 University of North Carolina Summer Reading Program Book. This program “is designed to provide a common experience for incoming students, to enhance participation in the intellectual life of the campus through stimulation discussion and critical thing around a current topic, and to encourage a sense of community between students, faculty and staff.”

The book won the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Non-Fiction from Publishing Triangle in 2007.