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Much of Stay True is told through from the perspective of Hua's often insufferable college self, yet filtered through a retrospective self-awareness. You might wince at his invocations of European theorists or his reflexive dismissals of Pearl Jam gone mainstream. You'd probably find this memoir a lot richer if you are familiar with 90s culture or know your way around Berkeley and the greater Bay Area. But all of it comes from an earnest, searching place, trying to piece together an identity in the making, shattered by tragedy and shaken by the difficulties of grief and memory.

Much of the memoir is grounded in Berkeley and its attendant subcultures. More than most of the cast of briefly characterized college friends that rotate in and out, Berkeley becomes a character onto itself. With an intimate familiarity approaching that with which he describes his slain best friend Ken, Hua recreates with nostalgic immersion the grit and counterculture of being an undergraduate there in the late 90s.

Although Smart Alec's has long closed down by now, and many of the establishments on Telegraph Avenue today are but superficial stand-ins for their past counterculture glory, some things haven't changed. Hua's pilgrimages to the archives of the Ethnic Studies Library mirrored my own two decades later, pouring over zines such as Hardboiled and Slant that Hua recounts having worked on back in his day. His recollections of late night hangouts took me back: the tight, lived-in yet cozy triples of Unit 3, the dimly-lit hallways and the floor-to-ceiling doors, the low-rises with their dingy secondhand sofas that make up most of off-campus housing. Dangling feet over the ledge of the campanile plaza, looking out toward the Bay. Disclaimer: I didn't actually go there as a student, but I can't stop myself from saying it: Go bears.

I appreciated how, unlike books such as Minor Feelings or The Loneliest Americans, Stay True never set out to be a definitive Asian American memoir. Even then, it makes astute observations of Asian American identity that stay away from sweeping, polemical generalizations. Take for instance, through his time mentoring Mien students in Richmond, reconciling his parents' post-1965 immigration story with Ken's long-standing Japanese American family history, or remarking on the subtle distances felt from subsequent waves of East Asian immigration, Hua nods to the layers of Asian American heritage beyond the usual, flattened image of highly educated Hart-Celler doctor/engineer immigrants.

Recommend watching the recent alongside Stay True. The documentary offers another angle into the world of 90s Asian American zines and Gen X Cool Azn male friendships. Additionally, prove that his enduring sense of cool has only matured in the decades since.