79The final section, “Earth,” is a long nonfiction
account of Kingston’s development of writing
workshops for war veterans (with a large thematic
emphasis on the second Iraq war, which had just
begun as the book was undergoing its final revi-
sions). Kingston suggests that by turning to writ-
ing as a way of dealing with their physical and
psychological wounds, war veterans can offer some
of the most eloquent voices in the construction of
a “literature of peace.”
Bibliography
Brickman, Julie. Review of The Fifth Book of Peace.
San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 September 2003,
Books Section, p. 5.
Hoong, Yong Shu. “The Fire of Peace: Chinese-Amer-
ican Author Maxine Hong Kingston Shares Her
Views on Peace, Poetry, and Her New Book.” Straits
Times (Singapore), 10 April 2004, Life! Section.
McMillan, Alister. “Peace of the Action.” South China
Morning Post, 7 September 2003, People Section,
p. 12.
Shulman, Polly. Review of The Fifth Book of Peace.
New York Times, 28 September 2003, sec. 7, p. 8.
Eric G. Waggoner
Finding My Voice Marie G. Lee (1992)
Ellen Sung is a high school senior in a small town
called Arkin, Minnesota. In addition to dealing
with the usual adolescent issues such as dating
and wearing the right clothes on the first day of
school, Ellen is under pressure from her parents
to maintain straight A’s and be accepted into Har-
vard like her perfect sister, Michelle. She ignores
students who call her “chink” on the first day of
school, and decides not to think about “what it
means to be different” (6). Ellen struggles under
her sister’s shadow, preferring English to calcu-
lus, and she dates Tomper Sandel, a popular white
football player. Tension escalates as Marsha, a white
cheerleader and fellow gymnast, taunts Ellen with
racial epithets and flirts with Tomper in an effort
to steal him away. At the end of the novel, Marsha
attacks Ellen in a drunken rage at a summer party,
but Ellen does not press charges. Finding her voice,
she learns that she “can speak for [her]self... but
that doesn’t mean that racist people are going to
go away” (207).
As the novel progresses, Ellen grows in con-
sciousness amid the daily struggle of being a
Korean American among all white students. She
becomes curious to learn about her parents’ past
and what her Korean-American identity really
means. She regrets not earlier confronting the
teacher and classmates who made racist comments
to her throughout the school year. Although she
accepts the Harvard offer of admission that she
has worked so hard for, Ellen acknowledges that in
acquiescing to her parents’ pressure regarding col-
lege, she is “silencing [her] own voice” (179).
MARIE G. LEE explores issues of race and iden-
tity by portraying the conflict between Ellen and
Marsha, as well as the intergenerational conflict
between Ellen and her parents. Ellen’s growth
is evident throughout the novel as she begins to
acknowledge and confront racism from her class-
mates and teachers. Lee builds up Ellen’s con-
sciousness and ability to speak up when attacked
both physically and verbally, but in the climactic
finale Ellen decides not to press charges. Her de-
cision suggests that racism, especially physically
violent racism against Asian Americans, can go
unpunished. She finds her voice, but she is not
using it to its maximum effectiveness.Bibliography
Lee, Marie G. Finding My Voice. New York: Houghton
Mifflin, 1992.
Sarah ParkFOB David Henry Hwang (1979)
DAVID HENRY HWANG himself directed FOB when
it premiered on March 2, 1979, at the Stanford
Asian American Theatre Project in Palo Alto, Cali-
fornia. The play was also produced at the Eugene
O’Neill National Playwrights Conference at Water-
ford, Connecticut, in July 1979. Most significant,
a production of FOB opened at New York City’s
Public Theater on June 8, 1980. This off-Broadway
production won an Obie Award for Best New Play.FOB 79