1st Edition

Politicizing Asian American Literature Towards a Critical Multiculturalism

By Youngsuk Chae Copyright 2008
182 Pages
by Routledge

182 Pages
by Routledge

182 Pages
by Routledge

This book examines U.S. multiculturalism from the perspective of Asian American writings, drawing contrasts between politically acquiescent multiculturalism and politically conscious multiculturalism. Chae discusses the works of writers who have highlighted a critical awareness of Asian Americans’ social and economic status and their position as 'unassimilable aliens', 'yellow perils', 'coolies',... Read more

Preface

Introduction – "Who Consumes Multiculturalism?"

Part I – Politically Acquiescent Asian American Multiculturalism

Chapter 1 – Cultural Economies of Model Minority Creation

Chapter 2 – Measuring Silences in Popular Asian American Literature:

Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter, Amy Tan’s The Joy

Luck Club, and Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior

Part II – Politically Conscious Asian American Multiculturalism

Chapter 3 – Beyond Ethnicity: The Critical Movement in Asian American

Literature – Carlos Bulosan’s America Is In the Heart and Fae

Myenne Ng’ Bone.

Chapter 4 – Remapping Asian American Multiculturalism: Karen Tei

Yamashita’s Critical Vision of Exploitative U.S. Culture and Economy

Chapter 5 –Counteracting the Dominant Encoding of "America": Ruth

Ozeki’s My Year of Meats

Chapter 6 (Possible addition) – Challenging the Straddling Position of

Middlemen Minority: Younghill Kang’s East Goes West and Changrae Lee’s Native Speaker

Conclusion –Multiculturalism, or an Ideology of U.S. Capitalism

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Biography

Youngsuk Chae is assistant Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Pembroke. Her research interests include critical race studies, theorizing globalization, Asian Diaspora, and critique of hegemonic discourse.