Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage PDF
Preview Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage
Page i Performing Asian America Page ii In the series Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David PalumboLiu, and Michael Omi A list of books in this series appears at the back of this volume Page iii Performing Asian America Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage Josephine Lee Page iv Disclaimer Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the netLibrary eBook. Temple University Press, Philadelphia 19122 Copyright © 1997 by Temple University All rights reserved Published 1997 Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984 Text design by Mary Mendell Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Lee, Josephine Ding, 1960 Performing Asian America : race and ethnicity on the contemporary stage / Josephine Lee. p. cm. — (Asian American History and Culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 156639502X (cloth : alk. paper) 1. American drama—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Asian Americans in literature. 3. American drama—Asian American authors—History and criticism. 4. Ethnicity in literature. 5. Race in literature. I. Title. PS338.A74L44 1997 812'.5409035073—dc20 9631621 Page v Contents Acknowledgments vii 1 1 Critical Strategies for Reading Asian American Drama 2 34 The Asian American Spectator and the Politics of Realism 3 61 The Chinaman's Unmanly Grief 4 89 The Seduction of the Stereotype 5 136 Acts of Exclusion: Asian American History Plays 6 163 Asian American Doubles and the Soul Under Capitalism 7 189 Staging "Passing" on the Borders of the Body Epilogue 217 Notes 221 Works Cited 231 Index 239 Photographs Appear on Pages 121–135 Page vii Acknowledgments Many friends, colleagues, and family members have supported me throughout the length of this project. I am particularly indebted to Michael Goldman, A. R. Gurney, Jr., Leyla Ezdinli, Randy Barbara Kaplan, De Witt Kilgore, Imogene Lim, Yuko Matsukawa, Mitziko Sawada, Ranu Samantrai, and W. B. Worthen. I also wish to thank Luisa Cariaga, Dennis Carroll, Tisa Chang, Chris Huie, Bob Hsiang, Corky Lee, Charissa Uemara, Roberta Uno, and Rick Shiomi for their indispensable help with information and photographs. David PalumboLiu and Janet Francendese provided sound advice throughout the process of revision and editing. My students at Princeton, California State University—Northridge, Smith College, and the University of Minnesota have given me valuable insights into the reading of these plays. The initial research for this book was partially supported by grants from Five Colleges, Inc., the University of Minnesota Graduate School, and the McKnight Faculty Summer Research Fellowship. I would like to thank all of those who by blood, relation, or spirit constitute the members of my extended family. I am especially indebted Page viii to my parents, Po Lee and Feng Ming Young Lee, and my sisters Jean and May for their continuing encouragement and care. Finally, I am most grateful to my husband, Kevin Kinneavy, without whose devoted efforts this book would not have been possible. Page 1 1— Critical Strategies for Reading Asian American Drama This book begins a critical examination of selected plays written by Americans of Asian descent. The works considered cover a diverse range of subjects and dramatic styles; my discussion teases out the shared strategies by which plays and playwrights make performance, dramatic form, and audience response inseparable from the meaning of race and ethnicity. As we shall see, such an examination necessarily engages with many pressing concerns, ones whose effects are felt outside as well as inside the theater. These concerns make it crucial for us to refocus our approaches to dramatic and literary interpretation in response to large political question about Asian American experience, identity, and action. Through the reading of these plays, we may gain insight not only into individual plays, but also more generally into the complex modes of action that these works employ and exemplify. Before discussing such critical strategies, I will briefly summarize some significant history that will help to contextualize the genesis and production of these plays. The second half of the nineteenth century saw the first major wave of Asian immigration to the United States. Attracted by the economic opportunities provided by the California gold rush and westward development and spurred by civil unrest and famine in China, Page 2 Chinese immigrants came by the thousands. Their new lives in America were complicated by the acts of violence and institutionalized discrimination they soon encountered. White workers, threatened by economic competition from Chinese workers, lobbied for passage Of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which restricted the immigration and naturalization of Chinese laborers and their wives. Passage of the act did not stop early twentiethcentury immigration from Asia. The need for inexpensive and industrious labor continued on plantations and railroads, and in the factories, mines, canneries, and farms of the West Coast states and Hawaii. Japanese and Filipino workers brought in as contract laborers soon faced similar restrictions. The impulse to stop Asians not only from entering the country but also from settling permanently gave rise to a host of laws restricting immigration, land ownership, and citizenship. The 1929 National Origins Act limited immigration from Asia to small numbers of exempted wives of U.S. citizens, students, ministers, and professors. Total immigration from Asia, which had reached nearly 60,000 during the period 1916–20, fell to 3,700 in 1936–40 and 2,300 in 1941–45 (Barringer 28). Significant changes in immigration policy and law after the Second World War, although undoing some of the earlier restrictive policies, continued to reflect a pervasive fear of the "yellow peril." In 1943 the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, and foreignborn Chinese were declared eligible for citizenship; however, the annual immigration quota for China was limited to 105. In 1952 Congress passed, over President Harry Truman's veto, the McCarranWalter Act, which gave all immigrants the right to apply for citizenship. Yet this act still established preferences for skilled immigrants and family members and maintained extremely limited annual quotas for Asian immigrants: 185 for Japan, 105 for China, and 100 each for countries of the "AsiaPacific Triangle." Nevertheless, the immediate result of the McCarranWalter Act was a gradual rise in the number of Asian immigrants to approximately 20,000
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