Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature (Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature)

401 Pages·2007·1.96 MB·English

by  Seiwoong Oh

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
ASIAN-AMERICAN
LITERATURE
(cid:2)(cid:3)

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
ASIAN-AMERICAN
LITERATURE
(cid:2)(cid:3)
Seiwoong Oh
Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature
Copyright © 2007 by Seiwoong Oh
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oh, Seiwoong,
Encyclopedia of Asian-American literature / Seiwoong Oh.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 10:0-8160-6086-X (acid-free paper)
ISBN 13:978:0-8160-6086-3
1. American literature—Asian American authors—Encyclopedias. 2. American literature—
Asian American authors—Bio-bibliography—Dictionaries. 3. Canadian literature—Asian
authors—Encyclopedias. 4. Canadian literature—Asian authors—Bio-bibliography—Diction-
aries. 5. Asian American authors—Biography—Dictionaries. 6. Asian Americans—Intellectual
life—Encyclopedias. 7. Asian Americans in literature—Encyclopedias. I. Title.
PS153.A84O37 2007
810.9'895—dc22 2006026181
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T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS
(cid:2)(cid:3)
Introduction and Preface vi
A to Z Entries 1
Appendixes
Bibliography of Major Works
by Asian-American Writers 342
Bibliography of
Secondary Sources 359
List of Contributors 361
Index 363
I
NTRODUCTION
P
AND REFACE
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The 337 entries in this volume introduce more citizens whose history in America goes back more
than 200 North American authors of Asian descent than a hundred years. To this end, participants in
and their major literary works. Many of these the movement underlined not only their Ameri-
authors were born and educated in the United can nativity and their cultural difference from
States; some, like Ha Jin and Carlos Bulosan, are Asians who came “fresh off the boat” but also
naturalized citizens or permanent residents; a few, their visible contributions to America’s nation-
like Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, are transnational citi- building: serving in the U.S. military, building the
zens or cultural travelers whose claim to “Ameri- transcontinental railroad, and participating in
canness” is limited but whose works nevertheless mining and agricultural industries.
constitute an integral part of Asian-American In the late 1970s, when most Americans still
culture. While the emphasis remains on authors insisted that Asians, wherever they were born, were
active in the United States, Canadian authors such alike and culturally and linguistically distinct from
as Joy Kogawa are also included for their critical “real Americans,” it was necessary to seek bound-
importance in the Asian-American literary canon. aries and parameters so as to advertise and estab-
Many authors trace their roots to East Asia, many lish the existence of Asian America. One of the
others to Southeast and South Asia, and a few to first items of business for Asian-American activ-
Hawaii, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. ists was to do away with the term Oriental, which
The inclusiveness of this volume, however connoted an exotic, perilous, and faraway place of
debatable, is forward-looking and reflective of geishas, heathen Chinese, and opium dens. So the
the most recent thinking in Asian-American umbrella term Asian-American was popularized
studies, which has constantly been redrawing to help undo the stereotype, to assert American
and expanding its geographical and intellectual identity, and to promote solidarity among Asian
boundaries since its inception in the late 1960s Americans. Soon the hyphen in Asian-American—
on the heels of the Civil Rights movement. In which implied a half-membership in American
the early days of the Asian-American movement, society—was removed to further stress the word
its primary aim was to claim that Asian Ameri- American. This “strategically constructed unitary
cans are not foreigners but legitimate American identity, a closed essence sharply dividing ‘Asian
vi
Introduction and Preface vii
American’ from ‘Asian,’” explains Elaine H. Kim, of Asian Americans in recent decades. Moreover,
“was a way to conjure up and inscribe our faces transportation between the United States and
on the blank pages and screens of America’s hege- Asia became no longer a long, daunting jour-
monic culture” (Foreword xii). ney but now a matter of hours and much more
In the 1970s and 1980s critics did not agree affordable. Immigration patterns also changed,
on the precise definition of Asian America, but as students, middle-class and affluent families,
nearly all of them focused on Americans of East and professionals began flowing in and out of the
Asian descent. In 1972, for example, when Kai-yu country, changing the makeup of Asian America.
Hsu and Helen Palubinskas published a literary In addition, the emergence of multinational cor-
anthology titled Asian American Authors, the edi- porations and such technological advancements
tors included, with a few exceptions, American- as the Internet and satellite broadcasting had
born authors of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino significantly shortened the distance between Asia
origin. Two years later, when Frank Chin, Jeffery and America.
Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong The growing permeability in the boundaries
edited Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American between Asia and Asian America, however, cre-
Writers, they included only the works that they ated an anxiety within the Asian-American com-
judged to show “authentic” Asian-American sen- munity. For example, Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, a
sibilities free from “white supremacist” ideology prominent scholar, voiced caution in her 1995
(qtd. in Ling 30). When Elaine H. Kim published essay, “Denationalization Reconsidered: Asian
Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the American Cultural Criticism at a Theoretical
Writings and Their Social Context (1982), a semi- Crossroads.” Wong poignantly argued that Asian
nal work in the field, she defined Asian-American America should remain distinct from diasporic
literature as “published creative writing in English Asia because, among other things, “collapsing the
by Americans of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and two will work to the detriment more of Asian
Filipino descent” and limited herself to discussing Americans as a minority within U.S. borders than
works that deal with the American experience of of ‘Asian Asians’” :
Asian Americans (xi).
The definition and boundaries of Asian Amer- In fact, in the age of Newt Gingrich, Rush
ica continued to change in the following years. Limbaugh, Proposition 187, and increasingly
While early scholars focused on authors with cul- vicious attacks on affirmative action and other
tural ties to East Asia and on works that deal with policies safeguarding the rights of peoples of
American domestic issues, subsequent scholars color, there seems to me to be an even greater
began to expand the field to include immigrant need for Asian Americanists to situate them-
authors and works that portray not just the United selves historically. (20)
States but also their countries of origin, imagined
or otherwise. Whereas early scholars and activists In practical terms, Wong’s point was valid. After
tried to claim America at the expense of severing all, despite all the efforts made by many activ-
ties with the ancestral cultures of Asia, later schol- ists from the late 1960s, even a fifth-generation
ars attempted to empower themselves by reclaim- Asian American is likely to hear, “Where are you
ing their ancestral cultures and embracing them. really from?” or “You speak English very well.”
The expansion of the field, in a sense, was close- Most scholars agree, however, that Asian-Ameri-
ly tied to the changing global economic landscape. can identities are determined not solely by the
The economic strengths of China, South Korea, American history of immigration, exclusion laws,
Taiwan, Singapore, and, of course, Japan had racial discrimination, and internment but also
undoubtedly contributed to an improved image by the ever-changing paradigm of international
viii Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature
politics and global exchange of goods and cul- In just a few decades, the number of ethnic groups
tures. Despite the unease expressed by Wong and housed in Asian-American studies grew from just
others, more and more critics began to analyze a few to more than 50. Southeast Asian– and South
Asian-American literature not just from an Amer- Asian–American voices became a particularly rec-
ican domestic perspective but from a diasporic ognizable presence. Vietnamese-American authors
one as well. such as Le Ly Hayslip and Jade Ngọc Quang Huy`nh,
The Asian-American movement was soon Filipino-American writers such as Cecilia Brainard
joined by Pacific Islanders and Pacific Ameri- and Jessica Hagedorn, and Indian writers such as
cans. To reflect this geographical expansion, Bharati Mukherjee and Meena Alexander, among
some Asian-American organizations and projects many others, helped expand the Asian-American
changed their names to “Asian Pacific American.” literary canon. South Asian diasporic literature,
This coalition, nonetheless, has been tenuous for which was and remains at the center of postcolonial
a few reasons. First, Native Hawaiian political and studies, joined Asian-American studies to focus on
community leaders were often less than enthralled examining the American experience of the South
with the alliance because they had a different Asian diaspora and on carving out its own niche
political agenda. Unlike Asian-Americans, they within the field.
wanted to have themselves recognized as an indig- These two major developments in the field—
enous people, like Native Americans or Alaska the blurring of boundaries between Asia and
Natives. They were also concerned with a different Asian America and the increasing participation
set of issues, such as the environment and coloni- of Southeast and South Asian immigrants—
zation by the United States. Furthermore, Pacific resulted in cross-pollination between the fields
and Hawaiian issues have rarely been addressed by of Asian-American studies and postcolonial
Asian-American organizations, prompting critics studies. The commonalities between the two
like Jonathan Y. Okamura to abandon the use of have allowed scholars to borrow ideas from one
the term “Asian Pacific American.” According to another as they grappled with questions about
Okamura, “its deployment is a discursive practice race, gender, identity, and representation. As if
that constitutes a form of Asian American domi- to demonstrate the cross-fertilization of the two
nation of Pacific Islanders” (187). fields, what used to be key terms in postcolonial
Despite these objections, the commonalities studies—diaspora, fragmentation, subjectivity,
between the two communities have helped to hybridity, and multiplicity—are now common-
maintain the coalition. Besides the geographi- ly used in Asian-American studies as well. As
cal overlap and proximity between Asia and the Moustafa Bayoumi says, South and Southeast
Pacific Islands, many Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Asian-Americans have changed the “landscape
and Filipino Americans have their American roots of study for the discipline” of Asian–American
in the sugar plantations of Hawaii, which became studies (“Staying Put” 226).
in 1959 the 50th state of the United States. More- In 2003 Bayoumi predicted that “it may only be
over, a number of canonical Asian-American a matter of time for West Asians (Arabs, Iranians,
authors, such as Cathy Song and Garrett Hongo, Afghans, etc.) to carve a place there” (“Staying
are natives of Hawaii. The increasing geopoliti- Put” 226). Arabs are still legally defined as “white”
cal and economic significance of the Pacific Rim in the United States, and West Asians have yet to
will only strengthen the coalition between Asian wrestle with the question of a coherent group
America and the Pacific Islands. identity, if there is to be one. However, the impetus
Once Asian-American studies successfully to join Asian-American studies is certainly there.
began to establish itself as a vibrant field of inquiry, As Bayoumi insists,
resulting in the founding of Asian-American stud-
ies programs or departments in several universities, Arab Americans and Asian-American studies
other Asian ethnic groups began to join the field. have much to learn from each other, and this
Introduction ix
has less to do with some abstract land mass ing and publishing since the 19th century. In the
long ago defined as “Asia” (which includes first half of the 20th century, immigrant authors
more than half of the Arab world) and more to such as Younghill Kang and Carlos Bulosan wrote
do with American imperialism and domestic about life as Asian immigrants searching for a
repression. . . . Palestine and Iraq ought now home in the United States. During and after World
to be seen as Asian American issues. (“Our War II, as Americans became interested in China
Work” 9) as a newfound ally against Japan, books such as
Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter (1950)
This coalition is likely to become visible in the were published to help promote the fledgling
near future, as Bayoumi has predicted. I have U.S.-China relationship. In the decades follow-
therefore included several representative authors ing World War II and the internment of Japanese
of Afghan and Middle-Eastern descent: Khaled Americans, Hisaye Yamamato, Milton Murayama,
Hosseini (Afghan), Samuel Hazo and Lawrence and John Okada explored the question of Japa-
Joseph (Lebanese-Syrian), Naomi Shihab Nye nese-American identity and began to show depth
(Palestinian-German), Diana Abu-Jaber (Jorda- and maturity as literary writers.
nian), and Suheir Hammad (Palestinian). What is now called the “Asian-American liter-
ary canon,” however, had its meaningful beginning
with the publication of Maxine Hong Kingston’s
HISTORY OF ASIAN-AMERICAN
The Woman Warrior in 1976, which depicts her
LITERATURE
life as a girl growing up in California. She received
Immigrants from Asia came to the United States in the National Book Critics Circle Award for the
significant numbers from the 1850s. The news of year’s best work of nonfiction. A few years later,
the gold rush attracted thousands of people from she went on to write China Men, which won the
China, who arrived in California as cheap laborers National Book Award in 1981. By developing a
to work in the mining and agricultural industries uniquely Asian-American literary voice, Kingston
and to complete the transcontinental railroad. inspired a number of other Asian Americans to
From the 1880s Japanese and Koreans arrived in write in their own voices, and by producing a
Hawaii to work as field hands at sugar plantations “crossover hit” in the mainstream marketplace,
and soon found their way onto the mainland. In she paved a pathway for Asian-American writers
1907 a large number of Punjabis who initially set- into the book market.
tled in Canada moved south to find jobs at lumber Two other authors of Chinese descent followed
mills in Washington and agricultural fields in suit. David Henry Hwang won the Tony Award for
California. Following the two world wars, the 1965 his M. Butterfly (1988), which was a great success
Hart-Cellar Act, which eliminated immigration on Broadway and was later made into a movie.
quotas based on national origins, and the end of Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club (1989) remained on the
the Vietnam War, immigrants and refugees came New York Times best-seller list for more than nine
in the thousands and tens of thousands, making months and was also made into a commercial
Asian Americans the fastest-growing minority movie. As publishers began to recognize the tal-
group in the United States. According to the U.S. ent and marketability of Asian-American writers,
Census Bureau, 14 million people in the United newcomers like Gish Jen, Gus Lee, Fae Myenne Ng,
States in 2004 identified themselves as Asian and Chang-rae Lee have been making successful
Americans, making up 5 percent of the total U.S. debuts with their novels, and neglected works of
population. The bureau also predicts that the the past such as those of John Okada and Richard
number will grow to 37.6 million by 2050, 9.3 E. Kim have resurfaced on the market. In poetry
percent of the U.S. population. also, David Mura, Garret Hongo, Li-Young Lee,
Historically speaking, Asian Americans such and Cathy Song made their presence conspicuous
as Sui Sin Far (Winifred Eaton) have been writ- on the national scene.