I am struck, both in the readings and in our discussions, about the concept of “mixing” that occurs in Fred Wah’s biotext The Diamond Grill. “Mixing” is both a theme throughout the work, and, quite literally, a way in which the book is presented. This mixing is, in fact, one of the ways Diamond Grill can be distinguished as a biotext, and not simply an autobiography. Within the pages, as we discussed in class, there is not only narrative, but history, recipes, historical documents. Changes in perspective, footnotes, poems, stream of consciousness. A menagerie of media all ‘mixed’ together to convey what Wah wants to convey. And what does Wah want to convey? Well, I would argue: that medium is the message. The book is a mix, a hybrid, just like Wah. It rejects the standards of traditional autobiography, a linear, logical line, and stands as it’s own genre. Perhaps in the way that Wah wishes for people reading the biotext to reject the stereotypical norms that people, especially people of mixed heritage, often feel forced to squish into. Let them, these people, have their own category, their own genre.

Wah sets this idea of both metaphorical and literal mixing on the second page, which is entitled “Mixed Grill is an Entre at The Diamond Grill”. Again, metaphorically, what follows is a prelude to the mixing of race and identity that occurs throughout the text: “it is part of their [Chinese-Canadians] colonial cook’s training, learning to serve the superior race in Hong Kong and Victoria properly”. This thought, of being a mix of both Chinese and Canadian, Asian and white, authentic and fake, echoes repeatedly throughout the work.

Likewise, I would say that the title of the chapter could very well be referring, quite literally, to the form of the text itself. We can’t forget that the name of the novel is also The Diamond Grill. Thus the mixing that occurs in The Diamond may not just be referring to the restaurant. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

The idea that mixing has created something new is reinforced on page 98, “even now a half-Ukraine-half-Japanese daughter of a friend of mine calls anyone, white or not, who doesn’t fit, a Geek.” This piece of literature is not a singular genre. It too is a “Geek”.  The Diamond Grill is neither straight memoir, nor historical fiction, nor political novel. It is all and thus, it is none of these things. As Wah says in the last line of his forward “When you’re not “pure” you just make it up”.