viINTRODUCTION
AND PREFACE
The 337 entries in this volume introduce more
than 200 North American authors of Asian descent
and their major literary works. Many of these
authors were born and educated in the United
States; some, like Ha Jin and Carlos Bulosan, are
naturalized citizens or permanent residents; a few,
like Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, are transnational citi-
zens or cultural travelers whose claim to “Ameri-
canness” is limited but whose works nevertheless
constitute an integral part of Asian-American
culture. While the emphasis remains on authors
active in the United States, Canadian authors such
as Joy Kogawa are also included for their critical
importance in the Asian-American literary canon.
Many authors trace their roots to East Asia, many
others to Southeast and South Asia, and a few to
Hawaii, Afghanistan, and the Middle East.
The inclusiveness of this volume, however
debatable, is forward-looking and reflective of
the most recent thinking in Asian-American
studies, which has constantly been redrawing
and expanding its geographical and intellectual
boundaries since its inception in the late 1960s
on the heels of the Civil Rights movement. In
the early days of the Asian-American movement,
its primary aim was to claim that Asian Ameri-
cans are not foreigners but legitimate American
citizens whose history in America goes back more
than a hundred years. To this end, participants in
the movement underlined not only their Ameri-
can nativity and their cultural difference from
Asians who came “fresh off the boat” but also
their visible contributions to America’s nation-
building: serving in the U.S. military, building the
transcontinental railroad, and participating in
mining and agricultural industries.
In the late 1970s, when most Americans still
insisted that Asians, wherever they were born, were
alike and culturally and linguistically distinct from
“real Americans,” it was necessary to seek bound-
aries and parameters so as to advertise and estab-
lish the existence of Asian America. One of the
first items of business for Asian-American activ-
ists was to do away with the term Oriental, which
connoted an exotic, perilous, and faraway place of
geishas, heathen Chinese, and opium dens. So the
umbrella term Asian-American was popularized
to help undo the stereotype, to assert American
identity, and to promote solidarity among Asian
Americans. Soon the hyphen in Asian-American—
which implied a half-membership in American
society—was removed to further stress the word
American. This “strategically constructed unitary
identity, a closed essence sharply dividing ‘Asian