Asian American Literature

By my count, you should have 9 sets of ( or 18 separate) comments by the end of this coming week (4/3).

Please make sure that you’re documenting your comments—that you know where they are!

Native Speaker was published in 1996, and so one of the fundamental cultural events that is in the background is the Los Angeles riots in 1992. Find out more about this from the Korean American perspective here.

[Note: link has been fixed!!]  Since we talked about the importance of food earlier, here is some information about a term you’ll see over and over again in this section of the class: kimchi (also spelled “kimchee”). The Korean Overseas Information Service has an extensive description of this archetypal Korean dish here, which discusses both its nutritional content and its cultural importance. (In fact, in the site’s list of “symbols of Korea” kimchi ranks #2.

It’s noteworthy that the food has such significant value as a Korean symbol that it is used as an identity shorthand for all kinds of groups and products. A camp for Korean adoptees, for example, is called Kamp Kimchee. There is a group of Korean American bloggers who call themselves the “Kimchee Mamas.” The 2001 Hyundai coupe (Hyundai is a Korean car company) was described by an auto magazine as “the new kim-chee-crazy muscle car.”

The first in a number of links that will give you additional information about Chang-rae Lee, author of Native Speaker: here is is web page at Princeton University.

Here’s the bibliographic information about the Murayama novel, in MLA form:

Murayama, Milton. All I Asking for Is My Body. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988.

Page Numbers:

The first section of your handout, with the title “All I Asking for Is My Body” begins on page 27 and ends on page 29.  The next part of your handout skips to page 78—which has “16″ printed at the top (which is the chapter number).  The handout ends on page 103.  Please number your pages accordingly, and cite the page number in your paper.

• Experience of Reality
• Identity
• Immigration
• Stereotypes (e.g., FOB)
• Difference between men and women
• Culture—Japanese American and Japanese [issei/nisei]
• filial duty/piety
• family
• identity crisis of nisei (American or Japanese?)
• citizenship
• traditional culture and values
• shame
• segregration (internment camps or plantation camps)
• class
• writing styles, Japanese (poetic) vs. American (ascerbic/blunt)
• opportunities of Nisei

As you begin your paper draft, I’d ask you to focus on two things: the analyses of the passages and the argument. I’d suggest that you locate 4-5 passages that you might like to work with (no longer than a paragraph!). For each, do the following:

• type out the passage, and note the author and page number after it in parenthesis.  Like this: “quote here,” (Middleton 1).
• Pick out the important words and phrases.
• For each, write a couple of sentences about what you associate with it. What does it mean to you?
• For each, explain how that meaning connects with particular issues of Japanese American experience. In other words, why does that meaning matter?

Once you’ve completed this for each passage, look over what you’ve written and see if there are consistent themes in a few of the passages. The passages that contain the same themes or ideas will form the basis of your paper.

This is the kind of writing that we’ll work with on Wednesday. If you’ve already written an entire draft of your paper, that’s great!! We can work with that too!

Click here for sound files and a dictionary of Hawaiian pidgin language.

Map of internment camps.  Click through for pictures of the specific sites.

Just a quick note and reminder that we’ve changed the reading for due for next week.  Rather than re-visit the Frank Chin essay, we’ll be reading a section from Takaki and the handout.  Take a look at the course schedule for more info.  Thanks to Nicole for the reminder!!