Asian American Literature

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.