Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context - Softcover

Kim, Elaine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0877223521 ISBN 13: 9780877223528

Publisher: Temple University Press, 1984

Synopsis

Focuses on the experience of Asians in America from the immigrants of the 1840s to the present

About this title

Review

"Kim tracks major themes, analyzes stereotypes and discusses the search for social identity, women's roles, and responses to America's racism." --New York Times Book Review "Kim does an excellent job. The book is a comprehensive view of what has been going on in both the social and literary histories of Asian America." --Luis Francia, Asiaweek Literary Review

Synopsis

An introduction to the literary works of Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipino-Americans, and Korean-Americans, this book focuses on the self-images and social contexts of the nineteenth-century immigrants, their descendants, and the Americanized writers of today. Although the book examines the novels, autobiographies, poems, and plays themselves, the social history of Asians in American is a significant backdrop as Maxine Hong Kingston herself argues it should be.These racially distinctive Americans have confronted in their lives and writings American stereotypes of the 'Oriental,' racial discrimination, and the cultural gulf between East and West. After a chapter on Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, and other Anglo-American caricatures of Asians, the author turns to a discussion of the first immigrant writers, many of whom were educated aristocrats playing the role of cultural ambassadors, and then to the less privileged, more socially critical generations of writers who followed.From works like "Flower Drum Song", "Eat a Bowl of Tea", "The Woman Warrior", "China Men", and a host of lesser-known writings, the author shows how portrayals of Chinatown, the Japanese-American family, and the roles of all the Asian-American women and men have changed. Drawing on her personal interviews with Asian-American writers, Kim also conveys their attitudes towards their own group, other Asian-Americans, other racial minorities, and white Americans a complex mix of bitterness, acceptance, and militance. Author note: Elaine H. Kim is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She directs the Korean Community Center of Oakland and Asian Women United (California).

Edition details

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0877223521
• ISBN 13: 9780877223528
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 241