Book Review: Passport to Shame: From Asian-Immigrant to American Addict by Sam Louie

By Bek Lozano Wright

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hame is a concept that many Asian communities are familiar with. We recognize it in the ways it is often embedded in culture. Some experience limited affection with family, some develop a perfectionist complex, and some battle feelings of shame as immigrant families. In Sam Louie’s Passport to Shame, he perfectly identifies shame as “a distorted belief that you are bad and unworthy of love. When a person feels shame, instead of focusing on correction, he or she focuses on self-persecution and punishment. Shame-based people believe their essential core is inherently defective and broken, which is reflected in their thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that lack forgiveness and grace.” In this book, Sam tells his story as a first-generation immigrant, journeying through shame and breaking free from its shackles.

In this riveting memoir, Sam invites us to share his life, starting from his perspective as a young Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong; his life as a successful journalist; his struggle through sex and pornography addiction; his time spent healing from addiction; and his trust in God to work as a therapist who was a wounded healer. In this journey, he describes the loneliness and confusion of a young immigrant trying to fit in various communities, the meaning of masculinity, and the challenges of navigating sexuality without any guidance. He shares with the reader his development of sexual curiosity that was riddled with shame. This shame then burgeoned into a sex and pornography addiction that he battled through his teen and adult life. He traces his career as a journalist that would help him achieve success and numb his aching sense of shame. Sam describes his relationship with his parents, siblings, girlfriends, and wife; and eloquently analyzes the intersection of shame with every aspect of his life including his addiction. Sam leads the reader through his life until he hit rock bottom. Thankfully for Sam, there were faithful individuals like his pastor who encouraged him to seek help from therapy and move toward healing. He later takes large leaps of faith to go on and become a therapist and help others like him towards a path of healing and redemption. Sam’s story is one of childhood wounds, searching for intimacy and satisfaction, and finding healing.

Sam’s former profession as a storyteller is apparent as he vividly paints a picture as though you are there with him in his humble beginnings and follow him through his highs and lows. Drawing on his most recent profession as a private practice therapist, Sam closes the memoir with an analysis of Asian culture and how it affects shame and addiction. As an Asian American who has an ongoing battle with mental health and shame, Sam’s story felt familiar to me. Sam holistically tells his audience about the healing of a trustworthy community, the benefits of vulnerability, and the freedom in faith and spirituality. Although his book is primarily a memoir and does not explicitly speak to the perspective of an Asian American Christian, he still invites you in to see God’s faithfulness throughout his life as a fellow Christian. 

With the trauma and violence that our communities have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and our community’s growing desire to unravel cultural trauma, shame, and the wounds it leaves behind, Passport to Shame is a book that will resonate with the Asian American community. In this book, Sam describes childhood wounds of unmet affection, wounds of rejection, cultural wounds, and various wounds that can be collected from our past. But Sam gives words of encouragement that wounds are not always negative: “Wound[s] gives us humility and makes us more real to those around us, instead of trying to prop ourselves up with our own ego and self-serving desires, ambitions, talents, and accomplishments. Our brokenness also offers us a glimpse of what we can offer the world, if we’re willing to listen to the call.”

Readers who are hoping to learn more about shame and its effects will come away from this book encouraged and emboldened by Sam’s testimony. In the words of Sam Louie to his readers, “Be broken and be proud.”

Image curtesy of Central Recovery Press

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Bek Lozano Wright is a biracial Filipina-white woman with a bachelors and masters in social work. She is a passionate social worker addressing issues of health equity in Des Moines, Iowa. When she is not cooking or “buying too many spices” she can be found going on long walks with her husband and making travel itineraries for her next hiking trip.

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