Research Posting #1:  Asian-American Literature and Young Adults

            My past teaching experience has been mostly with Black and Hispanic students, so I have invested time into find literature to reach them, but the school I currently teach in has a large Asian-American population, so for this posting, I wanted to explore literature for them.  Originally, I simply asked, “What is some good Asian-American literature for young adults?”  An initial search for this question lead me to list upon list of books, stories, and poems, some annotated, some not, which really was a great start for me because now I have an overabundance of choices.   But the research lead me to some other concerns that I had not meant to address.

            A great site to begin with is Brenda Hoffman’s Asian-American Literature: History, Classroom Use, Bibliography & WWW Resources, which gives a teacher just about everything for a starting point.  She points out how important it is to understand the background for Asian-Americans, from the Chinese coming over during the Gold Rush and the Chinese Exclusion Act to the internment of Japanese-Americans and the now current “model minority” label.  She then points out two types of multi-ethnic literature:  the multi-ethnic child and the melting pot.  In the multi-ethnic child literature, we see five basic themes that would be pertinent to any immigrant group.  These “five themes are heritage, battle against racism and discrimination, everyday experiences, urban civilization, [and] friendship and family relationships [while] growing up.” She points out that the “cultural problems clearly come out as the protagonist is caught between two cultures and must learn to survive.”  The melting pot literature does not address these themes and has characters that happen to be Asian.  These books are criticized for this, but from a personal point of view as a gay man, I get very tired of every gay story having to be about those themes and like it when the protagonist is like everybody else but just happens to be gay.  Next, Hoffman gives a list of six characteristics of multi-ethnic literature that can be used to evaluate texts.  These characteristics are:

·        Contain texts that reflect authentic and sincere portrayal.

·        Attempt to amend historical errors or omissions.

·        Descriptions are true to life and are positive.

·        Contain illustrations or photographs that are a true reflection of the way of life.

·        Depict women in transition from traditional to contemporary [or modern!!].

·        Contain language that provides insight into culture of the group.

These characteristics obviously do not address the quality of the literature but the quality of the multi-ethnicity of the works.  Next, Hoffman takes a very brief look at the history of Asian-American literature, which she says “began around the 1940s or before” with non-Asian writers such as Pearl S. Buck and has lead into today with a broader scope and more realistic view of Asians in America.  Hoffman then takes a look at several authors, including Amy Tan and Laurence Yep.  Finally, she offers an annotated list of books to read.  As stated above, this site is a great start, but the depth of discussion isn’t really there.  For me, the best part is the discussion of multi-ethnic versus melting pot literature and the six characteristics of multi-ethnic literature.

            Amy Ling has two very similar essays that I want to mention mostly for her discussion of what exactly is Asian-American literature.  In her “Asian American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Selected Bibliography,” she offers up three definitions as seen in three different anthologies from the early 1970s of Asian American writing.  In Asian American Authors, the editors focused on writers who were born and raised in America, allowing those who immigrated here at a young age or who had written and published in English before coming here.  The more radical editors of Aiiieeeee! chose writers who did not buy into American domination, thus excluding writers like C. Y. Lee (The Flower Drum Song) and Jade Snow Wong (Fifth Chinese Daughter) because they perpetuated what they felt were negative stereotypes of Asians.  The editors of the third book, Asian American Heritage, seem to include not only American born writers or those shaped by America, but also writers born and raised abroad, even including writings in translation.  In Ling’s second essay, “Teaching Asian American Literature,” she digs deeper into what it means to be Asian American and what is an Asian American text.  For her, this text is one where “the ethnicity of an author should be Asian and the subject matter Asian or Asian American.”

            Another source is a review by Rudine Sims Bishop of “[t]hree recent collections of short stories for young adults [that] focus on coming of age within parallel cultural groups.”  (As a side note, I had to look up parallel culture and found three very interesting articles: http://www.nfnc.org/docs/intention.html, which discusses the origin of the term,

http://www.whitehutchinson.com/leisure/articles/301.shtml which looks at a children’s play center in Dubai, and http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol3Issue6/
Vol3Issue6Benedikter.html, which looks at using parallel cultures to keep Iraq stable.)  What I like about her review of these books is that she understands the necessity of common themes that address and attract more than just readers of a particular group.  The Asian American book, American Eyes: New Asian-American Short Stories for Young Adults, contains stories from contemporary writers with diverse national backgrounds writing about a common theme, which is all about “home.”  Bishop points out, though, a stronger anthology, Laurence Yep’s American Dragons, due its broader themes.  Instead of solely dealing with Asian Americans who are still trying to find their home, the stories in his book see the Asian Americans as having already done that and are dealing with more universal issues.  She feels that “[t]ogether, however, these two collections of stories offer an illuminating look at the experience of growing up Asian American, and a solid introduction to some of the talented writers who are presenting that experience from the inside.”

            My final source is one of the annotated lists, but I feel the best one.  Jennifer Baker points out that Asians constitute a very large group and should not be placed under a single umbrella.  She also points out that many Asians are here for different reasons.  Some are here wholly by choice to make a better life.  Others have been dislocated by war and so have very different goals.  Still, others have nearly American backgrounds due to colonization before arriving. Furthermore, she argues the difficulty of Asian immigrants, even those here for five generations, of fitting in simply because they do not look “American” and have different cultural backgrounds (e.g. religion).  Her annotated list is broken down by national background, and instead of the usual focusing on Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino, she opens it up to several other groups.  Another nice aspect is that she gives an excellent introduction to each group, giving some background and history for the group and its writings.  Her annotations go beyond the simple one or two sentences of other lists to fully developed paragraphs, and she includes links for the books discussed to larger explorations found elsewhere on the website.  Overall, an excellent source for finding Asian American books for young adults.

            As stated above, my search began as simply a need for a list of texts to choose from to bring into my classroom, but what I found was a much larger discussion of Asian American and Asian American literature.  I can see from the sources the dichotomy of multi-ethnic versus melting pot.  It seems that as the Asian American literature progresses over time, much like other hyphenated literatures, it will swing between these concepts.  This can really be seen in the anthologies that Bishop discussed.  I think that this would make for interesting further study.  The term parallel cultures also intrigues me and would also be interesting for further study.  I think though, that I might next turn to South Asian American literature next, due to having many students of Indian and Pakistani heritage, but I have no doubts that I will explore and expand on many of the same topics as discussed here.

Works Cited

Baker, Jennifer.  “Asian-American Literature: the Voices of Exile, the Search for Identity.”  NoveList Feature Article.  2004.  NoveList.  EBSCO.  Sartartia MS Lib. 10 June 2006 <http://www.epnet.com/>.

Bishop, Rudine Sims.  “Books from Parallel Cultures: Growing Up Is Hard to Do.” Horn Book Magazine 71.5 (Sep/Oct 1995): 578- .  Professional Development Collection. EBSCO. Sartartia MS Lib. 10 June 2006 <http://www.epnet.com/>.

Hoffman, Brenda, comp.  “Asian-American Literature: History, Classroom Use, Bibliography & WWW Resources.”  Internet School Library Media Center.  James Madison U.  N.D. 10 June 2006 <http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/index.html>.

Ling, Amy.  “Asian American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Bibliography.”  ADE Bulletin 80 (Spring 1985): 29-33. 10 June 2006 <http://www.mla.org/ade/bulletin/n080/080029. htm>.

-----. “Teaching Asian American Literature.” Essays on Teaching the American Literatures.  Heath Anthology Newsletter.  D.C. Heath Publishing. Rpt. by Center for Electronic Projects in American Culture Studies.  Randy Bass, dir. N.D. 10 June 2006 <http:// www.georgetown.edu/tamlit/essays/asian_am.html>.