This collection examines transnational Asian American women characters in various fictional narratives. It analyzes how certain heroines who are culturally rooted in Asian regions have been transformed and re-imagined in America, playing significant roles in Asian American literary studies as well as community life. The interdisciplinary essays display refreshing perspectives in Asian American literary studies and transnational feminism from four continents.
This collection examines the exchange of Asian identities taking place at the levels of both film production and film reception amongst pan-Pacific cinemas. The authors consider, on the one hand, texts that exhibit what Mette Hjort refers to as, "marked transnationality," and on the other, the polysemic nature of transnational film texts by examining the release and reception of these films. The topics explored in this collection include the innovation of Hollywood generic formulas into 1950's and 1960's Hong Kong and Japanese films; the examination of Thai and Japanese raced and gendered identity in Asian and American films; the reception of Hollywood films in pre-1949 China and millennial Japan; the production and performance of Asian adoptee identity and subjectivity; the political implications and interpretations of migrating Chinese female stars; and the production and reception of pan-Pacific co-productions. .
A Library Journal Best Reference Book of 2022 This book represents the culmination of over 150 years of literary achievement by the most diverse ethnic group in the United States. Diverse because this group of ethnic Americans includes those whose ancestral roots branch out to East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Western Asia. Even within each of these regions, there exist vast differences in languages, cultures, religions, political systems, and colonial histories. From the earliest publication in 1887 to the latest in 2021, this dictionary celebrates the incredibly rich body of fiction, poetry, memoirs, plays, and children’s literature. Historical Dictionary of Asian American Literature and Theater, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 700 cross-referenced entries on genres, major terms, and authors. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this topic.
Delves into the long history of Asian American sporting cultures, considering how identities and communities are negotiated on sporting fields Through a close examination of Asian American sporting cultures ranging from boxing and basketball to spelling bees and wrestling, the contributors reveal the intimate connection between sport and identity formation. Sport plays a special role in the processes of citizen-making and of the policing of national and diasporic bodies. It is thus one key area in which Asian American stereotypes may be challenged, negotiated, and destroyed as athletic performances create multiple opportunities for claiming American identities. This volume incorporates work on Pacific Islander, South Asian, and Southeast Asian Americans as well as East Asian Americans, and explores how sports are gendered, including examinations of Asian American men’s attempts to claim masculinity through sporting cultures as well as the “Orientalism” evident in discussions of mixed martial arts as practiced by Asian American female fighters. This American story illuminates how marginalized communities perform their American-ness through co-ethnic and co-racial sporting spaces.
Providing comprehensive coverage of a variety of Asian American cultural forms, including folk tradition, literature, religion, education, politics, sports, and popular culture, this two-volume work is an ideal resource for students and general readers that reveals the historical, regional, and ethnic diversity within specific traditions. An invaluable reference for school and public libraries as well as academic libraries at colleges and universities, this two-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive coverage of a variety of Asian American cultural forms that enables readers to understand the history, complexity, and contemporary practices in Asian American culture. The contributed entries address the diversity of a group comprising people with geographically discrete origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, identifying the rich variations across the category of Asian American culture that are key to understanding specific cultural expressions while also pointing out some commonalities. Entries are organized alphabetically and cover topics in the arts; education and politics; family and community; gender and sexuality; history and immigration; holidays, festivals, and folk tradition; literature and culture; media, sports, and popular culture; and religion, belief, and spirituality. Entries also broadly cover Asian American origins and history, regional practices and traditions, contemporary culture, and art and other forms of shared expression. Accompanying sidebars throughout serve to highlight key individuals, major events, and significant artifacts and allow readers to better appreciate the Asian American experience.
Examines the diasporic and transnational aspects of Asian-American literature and engages works of prose and poetry as aesthetic articulations of the fluid transnational identities formed by Asian-American writers.
This book provides detailed and engaging narratives about 25 pivotal events in Asian American history, celebrates Asian Americans' contributions to U.S. history, and examines the ways their experiences have shaped American culture. Asian Americans have made significant contributions to American history, society, and culture. This book presents key events in the Asian American experience through 25 well-developed, accessible essays; detailed timelines; biographies of notable figures; excerpts of primary source documents; and sidebars and images that provide narrative and visual information on high-interest topics. Arranged chronologically, the 25 essays showcase the ways in which Asian Americans have contributed to U.S. history and culture and bear witness to their struggles, activism, and accomplishments. The book offers a unique look at the Asian American experience, from the California Gold Rush in the mid-nineteenth century to the 2017 travel ban. Highlighting events with national and international significance, such as the Central Pacific Railroad Construction, Korean War, and 9/11, it documents the Asian American experience and demonstrates Asian Americans' impact on American life.
Asian Americans are a growing, minority population in the United States. After a 46 percent population growth between 2000 and 2010 according to the 2010 Census, there are 17.3 million Asian Americans today. Yet Asian Americans as a category are a diverse set of peoples from over 30 distinctive Asian-origin subgroups that defy simplistic descriptions or generalizations. They face a wide range of issues and problems within the larger American social universe despite the persistence of common stereotypes that label them as a “model minority” for the generalized attributes offered uncritically in many media depictions. Asian American Society: An Encyclopedia provides a thorough introduction to the wide–ranging and fast–developing field of Asian American studies. Published with the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), two volumes of the four-volume encyclopedia feature more than 300 A-to-Z articles authored by AAAS members and experts in the field who examine the social, cultural, psychological, economic, and political dimensions of the Asian American experience. The next two volumes of this work contain approximately 200 annotated primary documents, organized chronologically, that detail the impact American society has had on reshaping Asian American identities and social structures over time. Features: More than 300 articles authored by experts in the field, organized in A-to-Z format, help students understand Asian American influences on American life, as well as the impact of American society on reshaping Asian American identities and social structures over time. A core collection of primary documents and key demographic and social science data provide historical context and key information. A Reader's Guide groups related entries by broad topic areas and themes; a Glossary defines key terms; and a Resource Guide provides lists of books, academic journals, websites and cross references. The multimedia digital edition is enhanced with 75 video clips and features strong search-and-browse capabilities through the electronic Reader’s Guide, detailed index, and cross references. Available in both print and online formats, this collection of essays is a must-have resource for general and research libraries, Asian American/ethnic studies libraries, and social science libraries.
The global circulation of comics, manga, and other such visual mediums between North America and Asia produces transnational meanings no longer rooted in a separation between "Asian" and "American." Drawing New Color Lines explores the culture, production, and history of contemporary graphic narratives that depict Asian Americans and Asians. It examines how Japanese manga and Asian popular culture have influenced Asian American comics; how these comics and Asian American graphic narratives depict the "look" of race; and how these various representations are interpreted in nations not of their production. By focusing on what graphic narratives mean for audiences in North America and those in Asia, the collection discusses how Western theories about the ways in which graphic narratives might successfully overturn derogatory caricatures are themselves based on contested assumptions; and illustrates that the so-called odorless images featured in Japanese manga might nevertheless elicit interpretations about race in transnational contexts. With contributions from experts based in North America and Asia, Drawing New Color Lines will be of interest to scholars in a variety of disciplines, including Asian American studies, cultural and literary studies, comics and visual studies. "Drawing New Color Lines makes an exciting contribution to the rapidly expanding inquiry at the crossroads of Asian American literary studies, graphic narrative studies, and transnational studies. Foregrounding the shifting meanings of race within, across, and between various national contexts, the fifteen essays in Chiu's collection explore the visual dimensions of Asian American transnational literary culture with originality and offer particular insight into the complexities of production, interpretation, and reception for graphic narrative." — Pamela Thoma, author of Asian American Women's Popular Literature: Feminizing Genres and Neoliberal Belonging "An informative, smart, and necessary collection. Drawing New Color Lines investigates a growing and important field—transnational Asian American comics—with sophistication and breadth." — Hillary Chute, author of Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics and Outside the Box: Interviews with Contemporary Cartoonists
David Henry Hwang is best known as the author of M. Butterfly, which won a 1988 Tony Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, and he has written the Obie Award-winners Golden Child and FOB, as well as Family Devotions, Sound and Beauty, Rich Relations, and a revised version of Flower Drum Song. His Yellow Face won a 2008 Obie Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Understanding David Henry Hwang is a critical study of Hwang's playwriting process as well as the role of identity in each one of Hwang's major theatrical works. A first-generation Asian American, Hwang intrinsically understands the complications surrounding the competing attractiveness of an American identity with its freedoms in contrast to the importance of a cultural and ethnic identity connected to another country's culture. William C. Boles examines Hwang's plays by exploring the perplexing struggles surrounding Asian and Asian American stereotypes, values, and identity. Boles argues that Hwang deliberately uses stereotypes in order to subvert them, while at other times he embraces the dual complexity of ethnicity when it is tied to national identity and ethnic history. In addition to the individual questions of identity as they pertain to ethnicity, Boles discusses how Hwang's plays explore identity issues of gender, religion, profession, and sexuality. The volume concludes with a treatment of Chinglish, both in the context of rising Chinese economic prominence and in the context of Hwang's previous work. Hwang has written ten short plays including The Dance and the Railroad, five screenplays, and many librettos for musical theater. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, Hwang was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
