(RE)VIEWING CHINESENESS IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY by ANASTASIA WRIGHT ...

223 Pages·2010·0.94 MB·English

ORIENTING TRACES:
(RE)VIEWING CHINESENESS IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY
by
ANASTASIA WRIGHT TURNER
(Under the Direction of Jed Rasula)
ABSTRACT
While numerous studies have been published detailing Modernism’s interest in Asia as
well as Asian Americans’ minority subject position within American culture, few books realize
the inherent interconnectedness between the two topics. This project proposes to fill this lacuna
by reconsidering the legacy of American Modernist poets’ interest in and glorification of
Chinese language and culture against the parallel history of Chinese immigration to and
participation in the US nation state. I begin by probing the sociohistorical factors that allowed
for the art object of China to become elevated while the makers of such objects were refused
entry into the United States. I then discuss the varying shades and levels of appropriation,
mimicry, inspiration, and translation apparent in Modernists’ poetic usages of Chineseness.
Next, I trace the poetic lineage of a single Chinese character from the work of Ezra Pound
through contemporary American poetry. The second section of my dissertation explores how
contemporary Chinese American poets Marilyn Chin and John Yau negotiate such legacies of
cultural borrowing. While Chin writes back against this history by claiming America and
refusing to ignore or aestheticize China, Yau’s poems disrupt traditional poetic form in order to
question the process whereby identity was determined in the first place. My project contends
that paralleling these disparate works reflects the complex and conflicted influence of Chinese
language, literature, and culture on American poetry.

INDEX WORDS: American Poetry; Chinese American Poetry; Chineseness; Modernism;
Influence; Multiculturalism; Postmodernism; Identity; Orientalism;
Cosmopolitanism; Ezra Pound; Marilyn Chin; John Yau
ORIENTING TRACES:
(RE)VIEWING CHINESENESS IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY

by

ANASTASIA WRIGHT TURNER
B.A., Wofford College, 2000
B. S., Wofford College, 2000

A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

ATHENS, GEORGIA
2010
© 2010
Anastasia Wright Turner
All Rights Reserved
ORIENTING TRACES:
(RE)VIEWING CHINESENESS IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY

by

ANASTASIA WRIGHT TURNER

Major Professor: Jed Rasula
Committee: Kam-ming Wong
Susan Rosenbaum

Electronic Version Approved:

Maureen Grasso
Dean of the Graduate School
The University of Georgia
May 2010
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to all of those who have supported my academic endeavors over the past
years. First, thanks to Benjamin Dunlap, who started me on this quest so long ago at Wofford
College. This project also benefitted substantially from the tutelage of Jed Rasula; thanks for
“removing the shroud” and pushing me ever forward. Susan Rosenbaum equipped me with the
critical skills necessary to undertake such a project. Barbara McCaskill has long served as a
mentor, personal cheerleader, and role model; her enthusiasm and support never cease to amaze
me. Kam-ming Wong provided guidance on all aspects of Chinese language and literature and
contributed greatly to my appreciation of it. The Fulbright office of Taiwan also aided me in
numerous ways. Without my year’s sojourn there, none of this would be possible. In addition,
I’d like to express my gratitude to the many colleagues and dear friends who have assisted in the
completion of this manuscript. Wang Fang-Yu, Liu Ying, Chen Chung-An and Rita Kung
submitted to numerous inquiries along the way. Neal Lin supplied encouragement, humor, and
perspective. Valerie Morrison’s futon and reassurance always helped me feel more comfortable,
while Keely Byars-Nichols and Shannon Whitlock Levitzke provided invaluable feedback on
numerous less-than-stellar drafts. Finally, this whole thing wouldn’t have come together without
the love and support of my extended network of friends and family and the constant
encouragement of my husband. This is for each of you.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1
2 ANXIETY AND DESIRE:
AMERICAN VISIONS OF CHINESENESS AT THE TURN OF THE
CENTURY ..............................................................................................................14
3 “AS A CHINESE VASE STILL”:
CHINESENESS IN AMERICAN MODERNIST POETRY ................................53
4 新日日新:
A CASE STUDY OF INFLUENCE .....................................................................87
5 “(AND NO HELP FROM THE PHONETICIST)”:
MARILYN CHIN’S DIALECTIC OF ASIAN AMERICANNESS ...................120
6 WHO’S AFRAID OF JOHN YAU?:
RESISTING RESISTANCE IN ASIAN AMERICAN EXPERIMENTAL
POETRY ..............................................................................................................148
7 AFTERWORD ..........................................................................................................193
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................204

v
CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION
As Ezra Pound entered the British Museum of Art’s exhibition of Chinese paintings, the
Angel Island immigration station opened its doors. Pound began his study and imitation of
Chinese poetry at precisely the same moment the Chinese inmates of Angel Island were
inscribing poetry on the walls of their barracks, detailing the racism that both jailed and
systematically stripped them of their hopes and dreams. At the very height of the Chinese
Exclusion Act, the newly formed little magazines competed to bring out imitations and new
translations of Chinese poems. These snapshots reveal America’s diverse representations of
Chineseness. While legally Chinese were positioned as separate and apart from the US majority,
their cultural advancements were lauded in the burgeoning Modernist literary movement. The
simultaneity of discriminatory practices against Chinese immigrants and interest in and
glorification of Chinese literature and culture begs the question of America’s discrepant
engagement with China.
Though the West had been “imagining” the East for centuries, the discovery of gold at
Sutter’s Mill in 1848 would drastically change the terms by which it was perceived. The
eighteenth century presented a heightened interest in chinoiseries while early nineteenth century
travelogues and adventure stories like Herman Melville’s Typee chronicled exotic worlds and
cultural traditions. However, 1849 marked a turning point in such imaginings as Chinese began
immigrating to the US in increasingly significant numbers. Encouraged by famine and poverty
as a result of economic debt incurred during the Opium Wars, 325 Cantonese speaking laborers
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from the Guangdong province disembarked on California’s shore in 1849 in search of Gam Saan
or Gold Mountain. Leaving family behind and disregarding the imperial government’s decrees
against emigration, these “sojourners” heeded American employers’ calls for cheap labor.
American businessmen brokered the Chinese arrival through a credit-ticket system where
laborers would repay the agents with their employment wages after arrival in the United States.
From 1849 on, the population of Chinese in the United States continued to increase
exponentially due in large part to the Central Pacific Railroad Company’s avid recruiting of the
Chinese as well as many businesses’ use of Chinese workers as scabs. By the year 1870, 63,000
Chinese lived and worked in the United States. No longer a far away people, China had become
real for Americans and an integral part of the creation of American capital.
Yet, for most Americans the future of the United States did not include this new labor
force. Concepts like Manifest Destiny reflected Protestant desires to create a “new Canaan” on
the North American continent. In keeping with this idea, the population was imagined as pure;
naturalized citizenship was restricted to “whites,” effectively prohibiting Native Americans,
African Americans, and the later Chinese Americans from participation in the official making of
America. Thus while American businesses seemed to openly invite Chinese to partake in the
riches of the United States, they tacitly expected the Chinese to leave once their labor had been
exhausted. Encouraged by perceived Chinese passivity, the United States viewed the Chinese
more as tools of production than as potential citizens. Restrictive, racially targeted laws silently
disenfranchised these immigrants upon their arrival in America. With the completion of the
transcontinental railroad and a surplus of Chinese American labor, Americans were forced to
reconsider the place of the Celestial in the making of America. The shortage of jobs coupled
with fears about Chinese assimilation and racial intermarriage increasingly turned public opinion
2
against the integration of these immigrants into the body politic. Acquiescing to the demands of
popular opinion, congress passed the Exclusion Act of 1882 as an answer to the “Chinese
question.” This act represented the first national immigration law targeting a specific ethnicity.
As Lisa Lowe rightly notes in her study of the intersection of Asian American history and
politics, “the life conditions, choices, and expressions of Asian Americans have been
significantly determined by the US state through the apparatus of immigration laws and policies”
(7). In effect, the law legislated the Otherness of Chinese Americans by equating them with
characteristics anathema to American culture. The law also disrupted their familial lives by
separating husbands from wives and parents from children. Even with its repeal in the wake of
World War II, the Chinese would wait until the Immigration Act of 1965 to be allowed to
emigrate in the same proportions as immigrants from Europe.
The racialization of such legal restrictions coupled with the public’s continued
perceptions of Chinese as “inassimilable” and “alien” led to the ghettoization of Chinese
Americans into self-sufficient ethnic enclaves in the late 1800s. These Chinatowns quickly grew
into tourist locales where the typical Euro American could enjoy the intrigue and exoticism of
China without leaving the comfort of America. In addition, turn of the century freak shows often
framed their “exhibits” as overtly Asian so as to magnify the spectacle. This legacy of exoticism
persists today as Chinese Americans still remain prodigal in diverse forms. In film, television,
and the US literary imaginary, the Chinese are variously portrayed as deviant martial arts experts,
“dragon ladies,” or as frozen within the cultures and traditions of the Qing dynasty. Others are
ultra-sexualized; in the continuing trend of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, men are viewed as
overly feminine while women are still viewed as submissive. Perhaps the most telling and
pervasive stereotype, the “model minority,” insidiously works against Chinese (and Asian)
3
Americans on a daily basis. This erroneous appellation codifies Asian American achievement as
a function of the seemingly incompatible conditions of complete assimilation into the American
melting pot myth while retaining race-based characteristics which predispose them to success.
As fulfillers of the “American Dream,” Asians are denied much of the assistance and privileges
given to other ethnic groups. Yet, most markedly, the “model minority” stereotype reinforces
the conceit that Asian Americans are first and foremost a minority and not Americans. Once
again “alien” and “inassimilable,” Chinese Americans have become scabs in America’s minority
discourse. Flouted as the “good” or successful minority, they are often held up as an example of
what other minority groups should strive for. Under such pressure, both anger and violence
against Asian Americans has erupted in major cultural centers such as New York and Los
Angeles. Though these backlashes against Asian Americans were perpetrated mainly by other
minorities, the root cause still lies in the majority’s understanding and perpetuation of Asian
American stereotypes.
Against this history of exclusion and racialization also stands a parallel phenomenon of
artistic cooptation and fetishization. Modern American poetry most interestingly complicates
American images of Chineseness and poses the question of how a nation’s poetry can exalt a
certain sect of people while its laws and policies restrict them. The Modernist movement
followed on the heels of the first Chinese exclusion act and subsequent “Driving Out,” and
coincided with the building of Angel Island and the rise of bachelor societies in California.
Despite their contemporaneity, American Modernism, a literary movement largely fueled by
white, college educated, affluent men and women from the Northeast, seems completely separate
from the plights of Chinese Americans. Yet, Modernism’s complex interest in and use of
Chinese literary and linguistic forms begs a reconsideration of the inherent interconnectedness
4