welcome back friends so ah we are going to
do asian american writings today the other
day we have been talking about indian writings
in english as well as ah post colonialism
and post what is post colonialism and what
are the post colonial text so thats what we
have been doing
and today we will be doing asian american
writings particularly with reference to ah
nonfiction as well as fiction but primarily
the novels i will be giving you a brief introduction
to this category of asian american writings
how did it all start and then as usual there
will be a practice test
so asian american novels what are what countries
do we count or what countries come under the
category of asian american work sorry asian
american ah categories so ah we talk about
the chinese people indian of course but chinese
japanese filipinos koreans and of course various
parts of the south asian
now ah before we start i wanted to draw your
attention to the background president lyndon
johnson in nineteen sixty five president lyndon
johnson who succeeded president john f k kennedy
after his assassination and president lyndon
johnson in acted a law where selection of
immigrants before that ah immigration process
was not all that easy citizenship was not
all that easy to get but there was a very
long period and people did get people who
wanted to go to the united states some or
united states of america would get absorbed
quite easily relatively speaking
so ah president lyndon johnson decreed that
selection of the immigrants would be based
on and that he gave out certain criteria one
is employment preferences and needs so if
america for instance requires certain categories
people who work in certain professions those
days it used to be doctors and nurses so a
they ah the contribute gave preferences to
people who belong to this ah these professions
family reunification per ah its lets assume
there has been has been in the united states
for a very long time and he wants his family
to join him wife and children or his parents
then yes family reunification could was one
of the other reasons and then most importantly
flight from communist countries peak of the
cold war ok
so this was one period when many people who
would fly ah or who would flee these countries
ah would be given ah citizenship employment
in the u s a now this immigration law as you
would expect transform the landscape of the
u s formerly asian americans were considered
a national menace but from the nineteen sixties
the second half of the nineteen sixties onwards
they transformed into ah model a model citizens
so if you want to know more about that you
can look up the ah immigration process and
lyndon johnson and all the lost but i just
wanted you to give ah very brief introduction
to this phenomenon
now ah coming to the literature thats what
we are interested in so there was a person
called a japanese ah scholar or a professor
scholar and professor yuji ichioka at u c
l a university of california in berkeley he
was the he is credited to established the
first ever asian american centre at u c l
a and this was also so with that kind of you
know brought together people like minded people
who were working in these area so a certain
kind of intellectual collaboration you started
happening at u c l a so that was the first
place to officially ah institute a program
like this a centre like this
and then you have to understand that this
we are talking about nineteen sixty eight
it was a turbulent era not just in the u s
but also in europe also you must have come
across the parasitic student revolution of
nineteen sixty eighty so please look up these
things you would understand what i am talking
about now it was called ah it was rightly
called days of rage a term given by todd gitlin
they were radical development in u s cultural
politics and political culture
there are so many things that were happening
counterculture ah in literature was one major
development that was happening american new
wave cinema that gave went to ah extremely
ah ah you know practices ah to gave went to
those practices and those ideas and those
attitudes that marked ah radical shift from
whatever was happening in preceding generations
so days of reach people were and settle and
they wanted to cause unsettlement politically
culturally politically it was also ah this
period also started marking the decline of
the new left
however ah there is a section of society that
celebrated nineteen sixty eight as a watershed
year in the development of historical self
consciousness among and this is important
non white people this is a period on one hand
which marks the rise of radicalism culturally
politically this is also a period which marks
the raise and growth of self consciousness
among nine non white people the reason work
that the mood of the general public starting
shifting to the public ah to the political
right decline of the new left and the rise
of the political right right wing as similized
by ah president richard nixon and his ideologies
and he famously gave the expression silent
majority ok that america ah or ah majority
of the people belong or believe in the ideologies
of the conservative right that is silent majority
it also heralded the death of the so called
ah other say so called death of the new left
now what was happening what was ah the for
or long term implications of all this now
asian americans is started integrating into
this society and there were two important
names daniel okimoto and jade snow she was
a chinese he was the japanese writer now these
two writers one mainstream a claim by accepting
a benign form of americanism through which
asian americans could enter a mainstream
now what is mainstream what is periphery thats
for you to decide but main stream is getting
ah the kinds of jobs are getting the kinds
of ah you know accommodation ah where there
was no restriction if you have ah enough money
unmarried you could find an entry into the
right kinds of colleges jobs ah residential
area so thats called mainstream you are no
longer at the margins in the main stream
now jade ah jade snow wong she wrote her autobiographical
the fifth chinese daughter nintene forty five
which was very well regarded by the use u
s government and ah it was also translated
into several languages the idea was that how
asian americans should happily integrate themselves
with the u s society with the american society
okimoto wrote an autobiography called american
in disguise it was a nineteen seventy one
work and he claim and affinity between japanese
american and white american identity it was
a sort of ah which addresses ah certain personal
questions and view points on loyalty to america
during the vietnam war identity politics interracial
marriage
so no prices for guessing that in the during
the vietnam war where the loyalties of the
asian american should live in although they
are of asian origin but if you are in asian
american then your loyalties are supposed
to be with the united states and both these
people were raised or looked ah at as the
post of boy and girl of the u s society of
the asian american ah society in the u s
now another important name at during this
period is frank chin who wrote a book called
aaeeeiiii ok i dont want to pronounced but
there is the way it is written you can look
at a now frank chin ah writer ah political
active is a dramatist ah he did not like this
kind of accommodativeness he felt that there
was a contradiction between americas claim
to democracy and its imperial march through
asia and people like jade snow wong and danielle
okimoto they are selling out they are just
ingratiating them self to a the u s government
ah he wrote an essay called fifty years of
our whole raise and also brought out ah this
anthology of asian american writers is this
called aaeeeiiii in nineteen seventy four
where he challenges the notion that asian
american suffered from a dual identity complex
lashes out against the legacy of white racism
and the ah ah overall the idea is that asian
american culture is masculine robust dynamic
as opposed to ah what the ah what the west
has been painting it has feminine and soft
the other day we were talking about orientalism
and the binaries so please relate these ideas
to what says you know orientalism ah
now this essay fifty years of our whole raised
ah it was influenced by the literary manifesto
of the black hours movement and essay was
called fifty years of our whole voice and
sort of carries along with the radical claim
for an alternative literary either tradition
and not joining the mainstream and according
to fra frank chin the asian american the alternative
ah literally tradition should be driven by
aesthetics politics and writing should be
masculine and ma mandly man hood a man that
were those were the keywords to represent
the whole of community
frank chin also was very angry he directed
his anger at women and fake asian american
writers ah and asian american women writers
responded ah ah but that asian american writing
has come to be re regarded as masculine and
homophobic now ah for example if you look
at looyi choose eta bowl of tea eat a bowl
of tea asian americans responded to or a asian
american women responded to frank chin but
asian american literature and writing with
the efforts of frank chin came to be regarded
as masculine and homophobic
this was a period nineteen fifty seven when
someone called john okada he wrote a novel
called no no boy in nineteen fifty seven its
a study of racism in america where there is
a boy who is constantly called derogatory
ah derogatorily as a jap boy and also he has
go back to tokyo dont live in america so all
these jibes are taken at him ah he gives a
term called stream of americanism according
to okada in america one needs to assent to
white supremacy in order to survive
if i as i have been telling you french in
criticize the emasculation of chinese asian
men in the writings as they were represented
in the ah writings of the white people allen
k kim a she is a feminist critique and according
to her asian men are coded as having no se
sexuality while asian women have nothing but
that means they have only sexuality and both
men and women that is asian men and women
they exist to define the white mans virility
and the white mans superiority
now this is this was said by someone call
elaine kim asian man have been coded as having
no sexuality while asian women have nothing
else so thats what ah she protest again this
kind of very lob sided point of view ah gender
perspective
in nineteen ninety one french in wrote ah
revised version of aaeeeiiii called the big
aaeeeiiii and he presented selected chinese
and japanese heroic apex as the sources of
the asiant heroic tradition authentic asian
american writing according to him must look
back to these heroic tail so every country
has its national legends and national apex
and national heroes and frank chin broad together
selections from those writings and presented
it as you know kind of the masculine and heroic
ah model to raised up to so according to him
that asian america ah ah according to him
asian americans are not ah feminine and soft
but there heroic and these heroic tales and
heroes should be taken as role models
you also did announced writers such as maxine
hong kingston david henry hwang and amy tan
of being complicit with the white publishing
industry in the starting agent legends and
creating unflattering portraits of asian man
so according to frank chin the ah binary is
between real and fake agent american writing
now ah so all these are big ideas important
ideas and we will be ah ah doing some practice
test also based on that so i had just mentioned
surgeon names david henry hwang and maxine
hong kingston amy tan i would urge you to
look up their works also their important writers
from the point of exams
there is another ah key text which arrived
in nineteen ninety seven a key postmodern
is kind of a text called tropic of orange
ok ah which is which was written by someone
called karen ti yamashita and it is it belongs
to the postmodernism magic realism it combines
element elements of magic realism hip hop
culture ah hm film no ah etcetera its ah based
in allay where homeless and gangsters and
ah organ sellers and hollywood stars and produces
they all combined
now on the plot covers just one week but is
ah epic in scope there is a traffic accident
on the harbor free way ah which is caused
and when a driver bites an orange containing
lethal concentrations of smuggled cooking
there is a traffic jam people abandon and
their cars the homeless take over the property
of ah the rich people the takeover the cars
and they build up ah an alternative community
and then second theme is relocation of the
tropic of cancer its cell which begins to
move in an orange from a tree growing exactly
at the latitude of the tropic of cancer falls
to the ground
so tropic of orange and this is a very interesting
take from a japanese from an asian american
writer ok so tropic of orange we also ah get
introduced to someone called archangel now
this is again in the tradition of magic realism
ah archangel is scheduled schedule to fight
ah rustling match against someone called super
nafta and then it is almost like mirroring
a fight between north and south America
there was another important work called native
speaker written by chang rae lee a korean
writer now here the protagonize does not suffer
from alienation and this is very important
previously all asian americans they have a
sense of ah distanciation they are not part
of the mainstream despite their achievements
and successes but here ah ethnic representations
dont really matter ah the narrator is someone
called henry park and he belongs to the so
called model minority this is another term
so silent majority model minority they live
in a new york centre ah sorry new york city
and the problem here is that his english is
too perfect and he has lost his language ah
and his privileges have come at the cost of
si his identity so thats the theme of native
speaker
so ah we can go on and on about the variety
and the wealth of asian american a literature
and writings in a in historical context in
contemporary context and of course we have
ah indians who belong indian american writing
and thats another category all together which
is also worth exploration and something that
is ah doing so well so ah i would urge you
to go through all those writings and if you
are apply i mean if you are interested in
writing essay type questions then u s you
will have to do a lot of here readings otherwise
this is the over view of asian american writing
and a also of course there exist a sub category
of indo american writing our own bharati mukherjee
from bharati mukherjee to ah very recent jhumpa
lahiri and more
so now lets move on do to practice test please
look at the first slide here read the following
now in this novel ah character called buzzworm
goes on to explain that individuals have their
own personal clock that holds past experiences
and future endeavors in this personal way
time has a different meaning for everyone
and has buzzworm suggest it had nothing to
do with being on time had to do with a sense
of time sense of urgency sense of rhythm cadence
sense of history identify the work a topic
of a cancer b mona in the promised land c
tropic of orange d my year of meats all works
of asian american writings and second the
novel is set in a texas and mexico b new york
and chicago c l a and mexico d none of the
above
number three now you see said the turtle drifting
back into the pond why it is useless to cry
your tears do not wash away your sorrows they
feed someone elses joy and that is why you
must learn to swallow your own tears so this
is what i will do i will gather together my
past and look i will see a thing that has
already happened the pain that cut my spirit
loose i will hold that pain in my hand until
it becomes hard and shiny more clear and then
my fierceness can come back my golden side
my black side i will use this sharp pain to
penetrate my daughters tough skin and cut
her tiger is tiger spirit loose she will fight
me because this is the nature of two tigers
but i will win and give her my spirit because
this is the way a mother loves her daughter
identify the writer a amy tan b barbara kingsolver
c maxine hong kingston d jhumpa lahiri next
one fourth the novel is remarkable for its
a unreliable narration b multiple perspectives
c use of slang d depiction of queer characters
number five is also based on the same passage
the author is also the writer of a the interpreter
of maladies b the bonesetters daughter c the
pakistani bride d the woman warrior
number six read the following what seems to
whole asian american literature together is
the popularity among whites of maxine hong
kingstons woman warrior david henry hwangs
f o b and m and madam butterfly and amy tans
the joy luck club these works are held up
before us as icons of our pride symbols of
our freedom from the icky gooey evil of chinese
culture identify the writer a frantz fanon
b raymond williams c stuart hall d frank chin
number seven identify this writer the world
is divided between those who stay and those
who leave who said that famous quotation from
a famous novel a salman rushdie b amy tan
c bharati mukherjee c jhumpa lahiri
number eight this authors first novel was
typical american the new york times recognized
the novel as a notable book of the year and
it was one of the finalists for the national
book critics circle award her second novel
mona in the promised land derived from her
short story what means switch and is a sequel
to typical american the next book who is irish
is a collection of eight short stories and
two stories from the collection were selected
for the best american short stories anthology
john updike chose birthmates for the best
american short stories of the century the
love wife departs from the chang family and
focuses on the new american family that consists
of multiethnic members including asian asian
americans and white american the author published
the author published world and town in two
thousand ten and tiger writing art culture
and the independent self two thousand thirteen
identify the writer a gish jen b amy tan c
david hwang d chang rae lee
number nine this is literally criticism and
theory the effect of mimicry on authority
of colonial discourse is profound and disturbing
for in normalizing the colonial state or subject
the dream of post enlightenment civility alienates
its own language of liberty and produces another
knowledge of its norms it is from this area
between mimicry and mockery where the reforming
civilizing mission is threatened by the displacing
gaze of its disciplinary double that my instances
of colonial imitation come what they all share
is is a discursive process by which the excess
or slippage produced by the ambiv ambivalence
of mimicry almost the same but not quite does
not merely rupture the discourse but becomes
transformed into an uncertainty which fixed
the colonial subject as a partial presence
by partial i mean both incomplete and virtual
ok it is as if the very emergence of the colonial
is dependent for is repre for its representation
upon some strategic limitation or prohibition
within the authoritative discourse itself
the success of colonial appropriation depends
on a proliferation of inappropriate objects
that ensure its strategic failure so that
mimicry is at once resemblance and menace
now this is the lengthy passage but look at
the keywords here mimicry colonial discourse
slippage colonial appropriation resemblance
menace now and ambivalence of mimicry now
ah who is the the authors there is ah who
is the literary theories and critic so you
have to understand certain kinds of ah terms
associated with certain critics and theories
international exams for english ah are ah
very fond of giving you such kinds of passages
you may not get exactly the same passage but
some of the concepts you have to know so get
these things ah extremely you know clear in
your minds what terms or which terms are associated
with which writers
so identify the critic and theories here a
elaine kim b homi bhabha c gayathri spivak
d aijaz ahmed
number ten in this work rene gallimard becomes
infatuated with song liling a chinese opera
singer he believes to be female unbeknownst
to gallimard liling is a communist operative
who has been using him to collect valuable
information about the vietnam war eventually
gallimard loses his position in vietnam and
is sent back to france living follows him
there to gain more information and is revealed
to be male
identify the writer a david henry hwang b
gish jen c wakako yamamuchi d tim toyama
number eleven i am not the only man to seek
his fortune far from home and certainly i
am not the first still there are times i am
bewild bewildered by each mile i have traveled
each meal i have eaten each person i have
known each room in which i have slept as ordinary
as it all appears there are times when it
is beyond my imagination this writers work
also includes a such a long journey b the
inheritance of loss c the ground beneath her
feet d the third and final continent i am
not just asking you to identify the writer
but also his or her other works
next one number thirteen the protagonist here
is described as surreptitious b plus student
of life illegal alien emotional alien yellow
peril neo american stranger follower traitor
spy or so says his wife in the list she writes
upon leaving him henry is forever uncertain
of his place a bit a perpetual outside and
looking at american culture from a distance
as a man of two worlds he is beginning to
fear that he has betrayed both and belongs
to neither
the work is from a native speakers b the interpreter
c obasan d the secret life of bees
number fourteen read the following again literary
theory no one today is purely one thing labels
like indian or women or muslim or american
are not more than starting points which if
followed into actual experience for only a
moment are quickly left behind imperialism
consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities
on a global scale but its worst and most paradoxical
gift was to allow people to believe that they
were only mainly exclusively white or black
or western oriented yet just as human beings
make their own history they also make their
cultures and ethnic identities no one can
deny the persisting continuities of long tradition
sustained habitations national languages and
cultural geographies but there seems no reason
except fear and prejudice to keep insisting
on their separation and distinctiveness as
if that was all human life was about survival
in fact is about the connections between things
in eliots phrase reality cannot be deprived
of the other echoes that inhabit the garden
it is more rewarding and more difficult to
think concretely and sympathetically contrapuntally
about others than only about us but this also
means not trying to rule others not trying
to classify them or put them in hierarchies
above all not constantly reit reiterating
how our culture or country is number one or
not number one for that matter
so identify the work a the empire writes back
b culture and imperialism c the right stuff
d the subaltern speaks
and number fifteen the author also wrote the
author of this particular passage also wrote
a orientalism b arguably c black skin white
masks d discipline and punishment
and here i have answers we will go through
the answers so number one c tropic of orange
by karen ti yamashita number two a c where
is it set in l a and mexico number three that
passage about mothers and daughters from amy
tans the joy luck club so a number four is
b the joy luck club is a popular known for
multiple perspectives four daughters and several
mothers ok so ah and each women has a chapter
two her own so a very entertaining and hm
thoughtful novel [laughter] number five is
b amy tan is also the author of the bonesetters
daughter number six is d the passage about
divid hwang and amy tan and maxine hong kingston
is by frank chin from his come all ye asian
american writers of the real and the fake
number seven is c bharati mukherjee from a
famous novel jasmine and number eight is a
gish jen number nine is b homi bhabha the
the work is the location of culture number
ten is a david henry hwang and the story is
madam butterfly number eleven is c the interpreter
of maladies by jhumpa lahiri and number twelve
is d jhumpa lahiri the is also the author
of the third and the third and final continent
number thirteen is a native speaker the passages
from native speaker by chang rae lee and number
fourteen is b culture and imperialism by edward
said and saids as you know is also the author
of orientalism so number fifteen is a
thank you very much
