1969 to the present. The memoir begins with the
descriptions of the author’s early life in Malaysia
during and after British colonial rule, her educa-
tion in a convent taught by strict Irish nuns, her
inability to communicate in Hokkien (the lan-
guage spoken in her birthplace and one of the eight
most important languages of China) as opposed to
her perfectly fluent English, and the xenophobic
movements against Chinese Malaysians. A daugh-
ter of a Chinese father and a Malayan-born Chi-
nese mother, SHIRLEY GEOK-LIN LIM also explores
the strong influence that American culture had on
Malacca, her hometown. The influence is signified
by her full name, Shirley Agnes Jennifer Lim Geok-
Lin, which shows the influence of Hollywood pop
icons her Westernized father was fond of (for ex-
ample, Shirley Temple and Jennifer Jones).
Lim’s initial uneasiness with her femininity in a
society where girls were seldom valued as individu-
als becomes more dramatic when her mother leaves
for Singapore, abandoning her six children to their
impoverished father. From the age of eight, there-
fore, the child Shirley imitates her five brothers and
associates womanhood with weakness, boredom,
and the absence of movement and words.
The story unfolds Lim’s parallel discovery of
both her femininity and her individual space
through reading and writing. In her memoir, the
condition of displacement, shared by many first-
generation immigrants, and the dilemma of dual
allegiance to the country of origin and the new
land of settlement appear to be overcome through
the discovery of a core identity, not as an Asian or
an Asian American but as a writer. Through writ-
ing, the author reimagines and integrates, without
any mutual exclusion, the lands of her life, trans-
forming them to homelands and creating a new
concept of territory without boundaries.
Elisabetta MarinoAnd the Soul Shall Dance Wakako
Yamauchi (1974)
Originally written as a short story, And the Soul
Shall Dance was first produced in Seattle by
Northwest Asian American Theatre and later in
Los Angeles, Honolulu, New York City, San Fran-
cisco, Washington, D.C., and many other U.S. cit-
ies. A play set in a California farming community
in 1935, And the Soul Shall Dance opens with the
Murata family losing their bathhouse due to a fire.
Mr. and Mrs. Murata are Japanese immigrants liv-
ing with their American-born daughter Masako.
The neighboring farmer, Mr. Oka, an issei, comes
to help the Muratas, and the dialogue between Mr.
Murata and Mr. Oka reveals that Mrs. Oka is not
Mr. Oka’s first wife. Before Mr. Oka left Japan, he
was married as a yoshi (a marriage arrangement
for a man to marry into a woman’s family to take
on her family name) and has a daughter, Kiyoko,
from his previous marriage back in Japan. Mr. Oka
came to the United States to earn enough money
to move his family to another village in Japan so as
to live away from his wife’s family, but his wife died
soon after he left Japan, and his first wife’s family
tricked him into marrying her sister, Emiko. His
wife’s family sent Emiko over to the States to live
with Mr. Oka as his wife. In the expository scene,
Mr. Oka also reveals that he is getting ready to send
for his daughter from his first marriage.
In the following scenes, Masako witnesses Mrs.
Oka’s strange behavior and Mr. Oka’s abusive
treatment of Mrs. Oka. Aloof and antisocial, Mrs.
Oka acts as if nobody is around and starts danc-
ing. Later, Masako learns that Mrs. Oka wants to
go back to Japan, to her forbidden love. She is ap-
parently unhappy with both her marriage to her
brother-in-law and her life in America. Upon Ki-
yoko’s arrival, Mrs. Oka’s mental health further de-
teriorates, and in the final scene, Masako watches
Mrs. Oka dance into the desert.
And the Soul Shall Dance explores the harsh
realities facing Japanese immigrants who leave
their homes in pursuit of their American dream.
WAKAKO YAMAUCHI not only depicts the tension
between the first and second generations of Japa-
nese Americans but also examines the gender dy-
namics of their communities.
Kyoko AmanoAnil’s Ghost Michael Ondaatje (2000)
MICHAEL ONDAATJE’s first novel after his Booker
Prize–winning The English Patient also marksAnil’s Ghost 17