has less to do with some abstract land mass
long ago defined as “Asia” (which includes
more than half of the Arab world) and more to
do with American imperialism and domestic
repression.... Palestine and Iraq ought now
to be seen as Asian American issues. (“Our
Wo r k ” 9)This coalition is likely to become visible in the
near future, as Bayoumi has predicted. I have
therefore included several representative authors
of Afghan and Middle-Eastern descent: Khaled
Hosseini (Afghan), Samuel Hazo and Lawrence
Joseph (Lebanese-Syrian), Naomi Shihab Nye
(Palestinian-German), Diana Abu-Jaber (Jorda-
nian), and Suheir Hammad (Palestinian).
HISTORY OF ASIAN-AMERICAN
LITERATURE
Immigrants from Asia came to the United States in
significant numbers from the 1850s. The news of
the gold rush attracted thousands of people from
China, who arrived in California as cheap laborers
to work in the mining and agricultural industries
and to complete the transcontinental railroad.
From the 1880s Japanese and Koreans arrived in
Hawaii to work as field hands at sugar plantations
and soon found their way onto the mainland. In
1907 a large number of Punjabis who initially set-
tled in Canada moved south to find jobs at lumber
mills in Washington and agricultural fields in
California. Following the two world wars, the 1965
Hart-Cellar Act, which eliminated immigration
quotas based on national origins, and the end of
the Vietnam War, immigrants and refugees came
in the thousands and tens of thousands, making
Asian Americans the fastest-growing minority
group in the United States. According to the U.S.
Census Bureau, 14 million people in the United
States in 2004 identified themselves as Asian
Americans, making up 5 percent of the total U.S.
population. The bureau also predicts that the
number will grow to 37.6 million by 2050, 9.
percent of the U.S. population.
Historically speaking, Asian Americans such
as Sui Sin Far (Winifred Eaton) have been writ-
ing and publishing since the 19th century. In the
first half of the 20th century, immigrant authors
such as Younghill Kang and Carlos Bulosan wrote
about life as Asian immigrants searching for a
home in the United States. During and after World
War II, as Americans became interested in China
as a newfound ally against Japan, books such as
Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter (1950)
were published to help promote the fledgling
U.S.-China relationship. In the decades follow-
ing World War II and the internment of Japanese
Americans, Hisaye Yamamato, Milton Murayama,
and John Okada explored the question of Japa-
nese-American identity and began to show depth
and maturity as literary writers.
What is now called the “Asian-American liter-
ary canon,” however, had its meaningful beginning
with the publication of Maxine Hong Kingston’s
The Woman Warrior in 1976, which depicts her
life as a girl growing up in California. She received
the National Book Critics Circle Award for the
year’s best work of nonfiction. A few years later,
she went on to write China Men, which won the
National Book Award in 1981. By developing a
uniquely Asian-American literary voice, Kingston
inspired a number of other Asian Americans to
write in their own voices, and by producing a
“crossover hit” in the mainstream marketplace,
she paved a pathway for Asian-American writers
into the book market.
Two other authors of Chinese descent followed
suit. David Henry Hwang won the Tony Award for
his M. Butterfly (1988), which was a great success
on Broadway and was later made into a movie.
Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club (1989) remained on the
New York Times best-seller list for more than nine
months and was also made into a commercial
movie. As publishers began to recognize the tal-
ent and marketability of Asian-American writers,
newcomers like Gish Jen, Gus Lee, Fae Myenne Ng,
and Chang-rae Lee have been making successful
debuts with their novels, and neglected works of
the past such as those of John Okada and Richard
E. Kim have resurfaced on the market. In poetry
also, David Mura, Garret Hongo, Li-Young Lee,
and Cathy Song made their presence conspicuous
on the national scene.Introduction ix