Book Review: Growing Up Asian American in Young Adult Fiction by Ymitri Mathison. University Press of Mississippi, 2017. 248 pp. ISBN: 9781496815064.
In Growing Up Asian American in Young Adult Fiction, just published this last fall, Ymitri Mathison presents a collection of ten essays by writers that discuss Asian American young adult(YA) novels addressing different Asian American subgroupings and how those novels address issues particular to each subgroup. In her introductory essay, Mathison discusses the specific context in which Asian American children and young adult literature has developed and how that literature goes beyond the “model minority” stereotype. The complex environment in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first
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She explores these issues through both fictional and autobiographical texts, comparing them to her own observations and research to provide a context for exploring feelings of abandonment, anger and loss of control experienced by the adopted Koreans. The texts she uses in her discussion include Marie (Myong-Ok) Lee’s two short stories “Summer of My Korean Soldier” (1994) and “The Rose of Sharon” (2004), alongside Melody Carlson’s Diary of a Teenage Girl: Kim quartet (2005-6), and Rose Kent’s Kimchi and Calamari (2007). Going from Korea to Vietnam, in the next chapter, “Consuming Vietnamese American One Bite at a Time”, Lan Dong explores an interesting category of literature concerning food and eating in terms of Asian American identity formation in two books, Bich Minh Nguyen’s memoir Stealing Budha’s Dinner (2007) and Thanhha Lai’s verse novel Inside Out & Back Again (2011). In “South Asian American Children’s Search for Identity in the Aftermath of 9/11 in South Asian American Young Adult Fiction,” Hena Ahmad discusses three novels depicting the “…alienation experienced by first-generation immigrant and second-generation American-born South Asian Americans in the immediate aftermath of 9/11” (Ahmad 168). These three novels – Marina Budhos’s Ask Me No Questions (2006), Neesha Meminger’s Shine, Coconut Moon (2009), and Anjala Banerjee’s Looking for Bapu (2006). Ahmad examines the ways in which these South Asian American YA novels represent their characters’ hybrid-ethnic-cultural identity development as they decipher and negotiate with it means
Despite their being of the same culture, Asian American, the authors of the two texts have contrasting viewpoints. Elizabeth Wong, author of "The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl", looks upon Asian culture with eyes full of contempt and sees America culture as far superior. However, The author of "Notes for a Poem on Being Asian American", Dwight Okita, recognizes how the two cultures blend together, going hand-in-hand with one another. Wong's perception of her Asian culture as shameful is evident throughout the text. She wrote that her mother "forcibly" sent her and her brother to Chinese school (Wong 1).
Tachiki, Amy; Wong, Eddie; Odo, Franklin, eds. (1971). Roots: An Asian American Reader. University of California, Los Angeles Press.
Written by Margaret K. Pai, the Dreams of Two Yi-min narrates the story of her Korean American family with the main focus on the life journeys of her father and mother, Do In Kwon and Hee Kyung Lee. Much like the majority of the pre-World War II immigrants, the author’s family is marked and characterized by the common perception of the “typical” Asian immigrant status in the early 20th century: low class, lack of English speaking ability, lack of transferable education and skills, and lack of knowledge on the host society’s mainstream networks and institutions (Zhou and Gatewood 120, Zhou 224). Despite living in a foreign land with countless barriers and lack of capital, Kwon lead his wife and children to assimilate culturally, economically, and structurally through his growing entrepreneurship. Lee, on the other hand, devoted herself not only to her husband’s business but also to the Korean American society. By investing her time in the Korean Methodist Church and the efforts of its associated societies, such as the Methodist Ladies Aid Society and the Youngnam Puin Hoe, Lee made a worthy contribution to the emergence and existence of Hawaii’s Korean American community.
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston portrays the complicated relationship between her and her mother, while growing up as a Chinese female in an American environment. She was surrounded by expectations and ideals about the inferior role that her culture imposed on women. In an ongoing battle with herself and her heritage, Kingston struggles to escape limitations on women that Chinese culture set. However, she eventually learns to accept both cultures as part of who she is. I was able to related to her as a Chinese female born and raised in America. I have faced the stereotypes and expectations that she had encountered my whole life and I too, have learned to accept both my Chinese and American culture.
He, Qiang Shan. "Chinese-American Literature." New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. WEstport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996. 44-65.
Adams Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Orphan Master’s Son, amazingly depicts the disturbing lives of North Koreans and government horrors through its simplistic language with relatable characters. The Orphan Master’s Son takes place in North Korea and revolves around Jun Do, who is the son of an orphan master, but who receives the shame that Koreans place on orphans. Then he enters the military where he learns different fighting tactics and becomes a professional kidnapper for the North Koreans. For his reward, the government assigns Jun Do to a listening position on a fishing boat where he becomes a hero for fighting the Americans with a story that the fishing crew and he invented to keep from getting placed in a prison camp after to one of their crewmates defects. Jun Do then goes to Texas as a translator, where he learns about freedom and other cultures. When the mission fails the government sends him to a camp where Jun Do’s name and identity die.
Wu, Ellen D. "Asian Americans and the 'model Minority' Myth." Los Angeles Times. 23 Jan. 2014. Los Angeles Times. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. .
Poetry is a form of literature that some view as obsolete in the modern world, but in the poem “To the Man Who Shouted ‘I Like Pork Fried Rice’ at Me on the Street”, Franny Choi dispels that belief. She uses poetry as a medium to convey her own personal experience with the stereotyping and fetishization of Asian American women, which is an issue that millions of Asian American women still face today. When considering Choi’s background as a Korean American woman and how that has shaped her identity and philosophy, we see how being an Asian American woman is intrinsically a core part of her work, which is why much of her work is about breaking the stereotypes that come with this identity.
an Asian American perspective of how a community is viewed in today's society.. For many years,
The intersection of dominant ideologies of race, class, and gender are important in shaping my social location and experiences. By exercising my sociological imagination (Mills, 1959), I will argue how my social location as an Asian American woman with a working class background has worked separately and together to influence how I behave, how others treat and view me, and how I understand the world. The sociological imagination has allowed me to understand my own “biography”, or life experiences by understanding the “history”, or larger social structures in which I grew up in (Mills, 1959). First, I will describe my family’s demographic characteristics in relation to California and the United States to put my analysis into context. I will then talk about how my perceptions of life opportunities have been shaped by the Asian-American model minority myth. Then, I will argue how my working class location has impacted my interactions in institutional settings and my middle/upper class peers. Third, I will discuss how gender inequalities in the workplace and the ideological intersection of my race and gender as an Asian-American woman have shaped my experiences with men. I will use Takaki’s (1999) concepts of model minority myth and American identity, Race; The Power of an Illusion (2003), Espiritu’s (2001) ideological racism, People Like Us: Social Class in America (1999) and Langston’s (2001) definition of class to support my argument.
This stage of my adolescent life was very memorable. This was the time when my life was becoming more complicated as I struggled to find my own racial identity, and constantly questioning myself, “Who am I?” “Where do I belong?” while facing the pressure of “fitting in” as a biracial teen in prejudicial Asian society.
In Maya Angelou’s Champion of the World and Amy Tan’s Fish Cheeks both convey their struggles with identity. Both authors are from minority cultures, and describe the same harsh pressures from the dominant culture. They share situations of being outcasts, coming from different racial backgrounds and trying to triumph over these obstacles. Tan and Angelou speak about the differences between their childhood selves and white Americans. Tan talks about the anxiety of a teenage girl who feels embarrassed about her Chinese culture, and who wants to fit in with American society. Angelou’s explains the racial tension and hostility between African and white Americans.
Soon after Papa’s arrest, Mama relocated the family to the Japanese immigrant ghetto on Terminal Island. For Mama this was a comfort in the company of other Japanese but for Jeanne it was a frightening experience. It was the first time she had lived around other people of Japanese heritage and this fear was also reinforced by the threat that her father would sell her to the “Chinaman” if she behaved badly. In this ghetto Jeanne and he ten year old brother were teased and harassed by the other children in their classes because they could not speak Japanese and were already in the second grade. Jeanne and Kiyo had to avoid the other children’s jeers. After living there for two mo...
The air would always be humid and stuffy while riding the bus to school, and the slightest bump in the road would result in tossing up the kids like salad. The backseat would provide carriage for all the popular and tough kids shouting out at pedestrians on the street or flipping off a middle finger to the bus driver that would shout for them to calm down. I despised those kids in the back. They were the same people that made my life a living hell, while growing up and attending an American school.
Asian American Literature Asian Americans seem to be fighting an unwinnable battle when it comes to the content of their writing. Writers are criticized by whites for speaking out against discrimination, and by their fellow Asian Americans for contributing to the stereotypes through their silence. I believe that Asian Americans should include politics in their writing as they so choose, but should not feel obligated to do so, as Frank Chin suggests. For those Asian Americans who make known their discontent with the injustice and discrimination that they feel, in the white culture, this translates to attacking American superiority and initiating insecurities. For Mura, a writer who dared to question why an Asian American was not allowed to audition for an Asian American role, his punishment was “the ostracism and demonization that ensued”.