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Asian Literatures in English

2020, Handbook of Asian Englishes

Writing in 1955, the historian D. G. E. Hall noted that the term “South East Asia” signified a disparate region of simultaneous “intermixture between the earlier inhabitants and later comers” coupled with the persistence and maintenance of local differences, resulting in “a chaos of races and languages” rather than a tableau of unified beliefs, languages, and customs (p. 5). Similar observations apply to the societies comprising South and East Asia. It might be argued that “Asia” in its heterogeneity of peoples, languages, religions, and local identities emerged as a tentative continental concept only in the early twentieth century, during the last stages of colonialism, even as approaching independence and post‐independence eras augured competition among multiple new nation‐states such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore. In that sense, Asia is thus not a clearly demarcated location but a contested idea that invokes multiple geographies and histories of conquest, struggle, and self‐determination. Postcolonial Anglophone Asian literature might be understood as the multifarious writing emerging from these tumultuous pasts and presents, and it may be impossible to formulate a set of unifying theories that can systematically analyze or comprehensively address such a wide range of Anglophone Asian texts, their diverse authorial and readership positions, and their commingled literary histories and canons. Yet we might diachronically trace several key geopolitical, historical, and intellectual developments that weave rather than fuse these diverse strands into discernible threads.

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Transitive Cultures: Anglophone Literature in Malaya, the Philippines and Asian America Christopher B. Patterson Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Alys Weinbaum Department of English This dissertation treats novels by Anglophone Southeast Asians who see their ascribed multicultural identities (Malaysian, Filipino or Asian American) as conflating notions of race, sexuality, nationality and labor. Southeast Asian Anglophone narratives allow us to trace contemporary global multiculturalism as a strategy of governance that emerged from three historical conditions: British colonial pluralism in Malaysia and Singapore, American colonization in the Philippines, and regimes of liberal tolerance in the United States. Whereas these histories are rendered invisible or incoherent by U.S. nationalist narratives and literary canons, Southeast Asian Anglophone texts expose them as legible counter-narratives. This dissertation is inspired by the Malaysian literary theorist Llo...

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Brings together some of the most exciting recent scholarship on Asian literature and culture, emphasising East Asia yet extending to South Asia Combines original findings of interest to specialists with a clear style of writing and argumentation that makes the volume accessible and appealing to the general reader Brings to life a wide range of Asian literary and scholarly figures important in their time and remain relevant and yet whose significance has been poorly understood

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Postcolonial literature in South Asia stands as a vibrant testament to the enduring impact of colonial rule on the cultural, social, and literary landscape of the region. Emerging from the aftermath of colonialism, South Asian literature reflects the complexities of a postcolonial world, where nations once subjugated by imperial powers grapple with issues of identity, nationhood, language, and cultural hybridity. This body of literature serves as a powerful mirror, capturing the myriad ways in which the legacy of colonialism continues to shape the lives and narratives of the people of South Asia. Three novels selected to study Postcolonial Reflections in South Asian Literature are Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. These literary works explore the complex aftermath of colonialism and its impact on identity, culture, and society in the South Asian region. Through the works of renowned author...

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The Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture

In the past four decades the field of Asian American literary and cultural studies has grown enormously, expanding its areas of inquiry beyond the reflections on national identity and citizenship to encompass issues such as transnational and diasporic identities and communities; the workings of imperialism; the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality; and social justice/human rights in a global context. This project offers the largest and most comprehensive collection of scholarship on Asian American literature and culture to date. With original essays on everything from Asian American literary classics to experimental theater, from K-pop to online gaming, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture guides both established scholars and readers new to this study through the extensive landscape of Asian American writing and cultural production. More than one hundred essays on varied historical periods, geographical contexts, and artistic modes offer an extensive examination of racial representation and activism, interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to literary work, ethnic communities, transnational and transpacific flows, and genres such as speculative fiction, the detective novel, and melodrama. Along with literary works from the late-19th century to the 21st century, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture covers a wide-ranging selection of Asian American theatre, dance, music, visual arts, film, television, and media. With its illuminating and profound commentary on Asian American writing and artistic practice, the collection surveys the historical foundations of this rich field, showing the exciting and profound new directions that currently drive the study of Asian American literary and cultural traditions.

Volume Editor

  Josephine Lee , University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Editorial Board

  Anita Mannur , Miami University

  Jennifer Ann Ho , University of Colorado Boulder

  Floyd Cheung , Smith College

  Cathy Schlund-Vials , University of Connecticut

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Literature. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 16 November 2024

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Teaching Asian American Literature

I find it useful to begin my Introduction to Asian American literature classes with a discussion of terminology. First, I deconstruct the term oriental, explaining that as a signifier of someone or something of Asian origin it is no longer viable since it is burdened with all the negative connotations of inferiority, irrationality, and exoticism that Edward Said clearly delineated in his groundbreaking cultural history Orientalism. (NY: 1978) By contrast, the term Asian is a neutral geographical designation and therefore more acceptable. Next, I explore the rather fluid boundaries of the terms Asian, American, and literature. Asia, as the world's largest continent, stretches from what used to be the U.S.S.R, west of the Ural Mountains, as far east as the Bering Strait, and as far south as the Indian Ocean; it is separated from Africa by the Suez Canal, includes all of the Middle East as well as the islands of the South Pacific. However, the boundaries of Asia as employed by scholars of Asian American literature have been much more limited, focused primarily on writers of so-called East Asian origins. [East Asia is only east in relation to Europe, of course; from an American perspective, China, Japan, and Korea are the Near West.] Kai-yu Hsu and Helen Palubinskas, editors of the first anthology in the field, Asian American Authors (1972) brought to light two generations of American writers from three Asian traditions: Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino, giving priority to American-born authors. Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, editors of Aiiieeeee!. An Anthology of Asian American Writers (1974) included the same three groups and selected on the basis of what they claimed to be an authentic but undefined Asian American sensibility. David Hsin-fu Wand, editor of another anthology Asian American Heritage (1974), extended the field to include Koreans, South Pacific islanders, and writers whose sensibilities had been formed in Asia. As South Asians and Southeast Asians are beginning to be recognized as writers, the boundary of Asian American literature is stretching. The term American has been defined by Elaine Kim, author of the first book-length scholarly study, Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context (1982) as the requisite setting of an Asian American text. Writers of Asian ancestry living in the United States, like Richard Kim and Sook Nyul Choi, but writing books set in Asian countries would be excluded by her definition. This seems to me an unfortunate exclusion that cuts off important sources of history, culture and memory. Since Asia is an inherent part of an Asian American's past, whether distant or more immediate, it should be acknowledged. Writers whose sensibilities were shaped in Asia, those who write of American experiences in Asian languages or of Asian experiences in English have been designated immigrant or emigré writers, but should also be included under the rubric Asian American. There is always a surplus of humanness, as Bakhtin says, ( Dialogic Imagination , 37) and several questions tease us as we try to put people into categories. At what point does an immigrant become an American? Should American citizenship be the sole criterion? Can't a lengthy residency Americanize an immigrant even if his/her citizenship has remained unchanged? Where do mixed-race people fit into these designations and how much Asian ancestry is necessary for the Asian American appellation? What about an author who is racially Asian and nationally American but who chooses not to write of his/her own ethnicity? Is Asian American literature defined by the ethnicity of the author or by its subject matter? These questions seem answerable only on a case by case basis, depending on the scholar or critic tackling them. In brief, for me the ethnicity of an author should be Asian and the subject matter Asian or Asian American to fit my definition of an Asian American text. Finally, what is literature? By what criteria do we decide which texts are works of art and which are not? Feminists and ethnic scholars have been calling into question singular points of view that claim universality and putting in their stead alternate versions of history, of beauty and truth. We have begun to ask whose criteria we are using for inclusion into the canon and for what purposes. We are looking at autobiography, work songs, and diaries as literary texts worthy of study. We are urging everyone to admit to a perspective and to grant the validity of other perspectives. We are realizing that there are large gaps in history, many stories which have never before been heard by the populace at large, stories by those who are powerless, working class, and peoples of color. Thus, Asian American literature has several purposes: to remember the past, to give voice to a hitherto silent people with an ignored and therefore unknown history, to correct stereotypes of an exotic or foreign experience and thus, as Hong Kingston says, to claim America for the thousands of Americans whose Asian faces too frequently deny them a legitimate place in this country of their birth. This literature cannot be read without some grounding in the historical and cultural contexts of Asians in the United States. Nor can the term Asian American be understood as a monolithic unity, for it contains hosts of nationalities and languages, dozens of religions, and a multitude of races as originating sources. Though the Heath Anthology includes only ten Asian American authors out of several possible hundreds, it does present a chronological and a somewhat representative sample from a field growing in two directions as new writers become published and as scholars uncover writers of the past. Edith Maud Eaton (Sui Sin Far) ( 2, 884-901) is one of these discoveries. Like Harriet Jacobs, she has the distinction of being a pioneer, the first Asian American writer of short fiction; her younger sister Winnifred Eaton (who used a Japanese pseudonym, Onoto Watanna, and is not included in the Anthology ) was the first Asian American novelist. As contemporary reviewers wrote of Edith Eaton's work, Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian, her autobiographical essay sounded a new note in American literature, spotlighting the between-worlds plight of Chinese Eurasians during a period of virulent sinophobia. Sinophobia, which extended to all Asians, remained strong for nearly a century from the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the 1870s until the immigration reform act of 1965, which ended discriminatory quotas favoring Europeans and equalized quotas worldwide. Consequently, much of the Asian immigrant experience has been a painful one. Sui Sin Far's short story In the Land of the Free recounts the high cost paid in anguish when unjust immigration restrictions are enforced without regard to human feelings. The events in the story emphasize the irony of its title, and the estrangement of the child from his mother at the story's end foreshadows his future assimilation into the dominant culture and the attendant loss of his motherland and mothertongue. The selection from Younghill Kang's autobiography East Goes West (2, 1747-1754), recounts the comic mishaps when a newly arrived Korean student of Shakespeare attempts the work of domestic servant in an American home, but the subtext exposes the limited choices open to an Asian immigrant in a land which prides itself on being a haven for the persecuted and a land of opportunity. Still another subtextual layer is the feminization of alien young men who themselves express male chauvinist views of their own women at home. Carved on the Walls: Poetry by Early Chinese Immigrants (2, 1755-1762) and Silence by Filipino-American Carlos Bulosan (2, 1840-1843) continue to iterate the gulf between the rhetoric of America and the reality of living here. Having saved for the passage across the Pacific Ocean, would-be Chinese immigrants dream of entering the Gold Mountain but find themselves imprisoned on an island, for weeks, months, even years, tantalizingly within sight of the buildings of San Francisco. Instead of golden opportunities, they sleep in three tiered bunks two hundred in a room and wait for the interrogations which will determine their fate: permission to enter the U.S.A. or an ignominious return to China. Or, like the protagonist in Bulosan's poignant story, they dream in lonely rooms of warm human contacts which evaporate like mist. In the latter half of this century, Asian American writing hasachieved new levels of maturity, artistry and emotional depth. Hisaye Yamamoto's beautifully achieved story Seventeen Syllables, (2, 1871-1882) written from the perspective of an adolescent and thus told obliquely, delineates the tensions in a Japanese American family where each of the three family members' life trajectories lead them painfully in opposing directions. The traumatic Relocation experience, attendant upon Executive Order 9066 which uprooted 110,000 Japanese Americans from their west coast homes and sent them to live behind barbed wire in inland desert camps, has much of the writing from this group. John Okada's No-No Boy (2, 1900-1912) traces the the psychological scars of the war at home in the efforts of a draft resister, Ichiro, to come to terms with his decision and contrasts his tension-filled home with the love-filled family of Kenji, a Japanese American veteran who returns from war with a gangrenous wound that continues to take inches off his leg and eventually takes his life. What price glory, the text seems to be asking, and what land is this where everyone seems to be filled with hatred for someone else? The work of Maxine Hong Kingston (2, 2094-2115) and Janice Mirikitani (2, 2501-2509) reflect the ramifications of the Civil Rights and Women's Liberation Movements of the 1960s and 1970s: affirmation and assertion of the self as an amalgam of the specificities of race, culture, gender and class. Kingston in The Woman Warrior finds a meaningful model in a classical Chinese heroine, Fa Mulan, the woman warrior, whose story she embroiders on, while Mirikitani gives voice to the unvoiced struggle of her parents to survive in a hostile environment and to her silent daughter who denies she is like her mother. Both writers speak of the gulfs of silence and incomprehension between generations of mothers and daughters, gulfs that cry out to be bridged. Finally, Garrett Hongo (2, 2550-2562) and Cathy Song (2, 2585-2593), two accomplished and acclaimed Hawaiian-born poets, through the use of striking, sensuous details render beautiful and extraordinary such everyday incidents as coming home from work, cooking, and bathing. Students who have had no previous contact with Asian Americans, who know only the model minority stories in the media and the distorted Hollywood images of orientals, are generally surprised to learn, after reading Asian American literature, that Asians are just people after all. If they have come to this realization, as small a step as it may seem to some of us, they have made a giant leap towards greater understanding. And perhaps, one day, authors like Hong Kingston and English professors with Asian features in the United States will no longer be complimented on their good English but will be accepted without raised eyebrows as belonging here.