Review of The All-American by Joe Milan Jr.

*The All-American* by Joe Milan Jr. (2023). Published by W.W. Norton and Company.

I found out about The All-American when I was browsing my usual curated book reading lists, and I was very curious about this one because of the premise. Years ago I remember watching a video about a man who was adopted from Korea, but when something happened, he was deported back to his home country.

He had not been adopted by Koreans, so when he was deported, he didn’t know the language and the culture at all, nor did he have any connections there. This is a similar situation that happens in the plot of The All-American, but more on that later in this blog post.

Anyways, I ended up ordering a copy of The All-American to my local library branch for when it came out. I was the first one on the waitlist, so when it came time for the release, I was able to pick up my copy almost immediately once the library had it.

I ended up reading the first one hundred pages in one day, then I ended up having to go to New York for two weeks for work. So I didn’t bring the book because it was dead weight for me (I travel with my Kindle), so I finished it when I got home.

Here’s my review!

When Bucky is deported to his home country, he has to learn to survive as a Korean, not an American.

Our main character in this novel is Bucky Yi, a Korean adoptee who grew up in a largely white, rural community in Washington. He’s the most American person you could probably meet here, as he was raised by what some might stereotypically condemn as white trash.

But his adoptive mother truly tried to give him the best life he could have with the circumstances, and Bucky, like many of his other football teammates, dreams of going off to college and going pro in the sport. All of that shatters when he ends up in a hostage situation that’s facilitated by his uncle and deported back to South Korea.

As it turns out, his birth father or someone screwed up the paperwork, and he was never actually granted American citizenship. In the years that passed, no one bothered to confirm this, so Bucky is deported to Korea with only the clothes on his back and very little money to his name.

He doesn’t speak Korean and can’t even pronounce his own Korean name, so to suddenly be in a country where everyone assumes he is Korean when he’s a banana is a complete and utter culture shock. Back home, only he and the other Korean adoptee girl were the only Asians.

He finds refuge at a bar for expats, managing to sling some work for the guy who owns it, and rents out a cheap room a hostel nearby. He manages to get into contact with his mother, Sherry, and his lawyer at times, but it seems like things are pretty bleak for a bit.

But at least he’s getting some money at this point, so he decides to try and track down his birth father in order to clear some things up so he can head home. That search ends up becoming quite futile, as the people in their hometown claim he’s dead, so Bucky heads back to Seoul.

The other Korean girl adoptee from his high school also happens to show up, and after a really awkward and drunk encounter, Bucky ends up pissing her off because he’s whitewashed and simply doesn’t care about his culture at this point—unlike her, who wants to connect with it right now.

She storms away, and the next big incident happens: Bucky, after getting the golden ticket home from the American embassy, is arrested by the Korean police for evading the draft.

The next, and final arc, of the novel takes place as Bucky is in the Korean military. He doesn’t speak Korean and they don’t believe him when he says that, but eventually they come to realize he’s not actually screwing with them.

He’s given lessons in how to speak Korean, and realizes his birth father actually left him a ton of debt, meaning that he might be stuck in the army forever if nothing changes, as he has to stay until the debt is gone. At some point, he ends up on a remote island with another poor guy who got stuck with him and speaks some English.

Eventually, the novel ends with Bucky starting to attend school in Korea, finally beginning to accept who he is and learn Korean, and the girl from his high school ends up there too.

It’s an interesting novel because it’s pretty much a slow realization for Bucky about who he actually is, and when he can properly speak his Korean name for the first time, it’s a shift from who he once was.

Overall Thoughts

Being stuck inside of Bucky’s head and character for the entirety of the novel can be a bit of workout, I will admit. He’s kind of insufferable for the good part of the novel, which means that I was struggling at times to get through it.

I do think this is an important novel because these things do happen to not only adoptees, but kids who were immigrants and brought to this country before they can remember it. Although Bucky might be fictional, there are people like him out in the world.

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