to obey her mother, who does not take life well
in America. This desire fundamentally fluctuates
with her mother’s silence, secrecy, and profound
sadness over her past in Vietnam. Only through
time, the protagonist’s love of her mother, and
her familiarity with both Vietnamese and Ameri-
can cultures, can she understand the burdens her
mother bears as she negotiates her way across the
bridge between past and present, and between
Vietnam and America.
Bibliography
Cao, Lan. Monkey Bridge. New York: Penguin Books,
1997.
Janette, Michele. “Guerrilla Irony in Lan Cao’s Mon-
key Bridge.” Contemporary Literature 42, no. 1
(2001): 50–77.
Stocks, Claire. “Bridging the Gaps: Inescapable His-
tory in Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge.” Studies in the
Literary Imagination 37, no. 1 (2004): 83–100.
Hanh Nguyen
Carbò, Nick (1964– )
Filipino-American poet and editor Nick Carbò
was born in Legaspi, the Philippines. When he was
two, he was adopted together with his younger sis-
ter by a Spanish couple. He grew up in Manila and
attended the International School before complet-
ing his education in the United States. He began to
write poems when he was studying at Bennington
College, Vermont, in 1984–85. After receiving his
Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from
Sarah Lawrence College, New York, he has taught
courses at New Jersey Institute of Technology,
Bucknell University, American University in Wash-
ington D.C., University of Miami, and Columbia
College in Chicago. NEA (National Endowment
for the Arts) and NYFA (New York Foundation
for the Arts) have awarded him grants in poetry.
His poetry appeared in such magazines as Plough-
shares, Gargoyle, DisOrient, and Mangrove.
Nick Carbò has published four books of poetry:
El Grupo McDonald’s (1995); Secret Asian Man
(2000), which won the 2001 Asian American Lit-
erary Award; Rising from Your Book (2003), which
is an e-chapbook of experimental poems; and An-
dalusian Dawn (2004), produced during his writ-
ing residency in Spain. His poems are composed
in English, even though numerous Spanish and
Tagalog words can be found, signifying his mixed
heritage. The poems explore central issues such as
colonialism, the history of the Philippines and the
Filipino diaspora, cultural roots, stereotypes (such
as the one according to which Asian men are sup-
posedly emasculated). His poems are character-
ized by deep insights and thought-provoking and
subtle irony.
Nick Carbò has also edited four poetry an-
thologies. Returning a Borrowed Tongue (1996)
features Filipino and Filipino-American poets,
thus aiming at recovering a sense of the Filipino
poetic tradition. Babaylan (2000), which he coed-
ited with Eileen Tabios, collects the works of more
than 60 Filipina and Filipina-American writers of
different generations from across the globe. Sweet
Jesus: Poems about the Ultimate Icon (2002) was
coedited with his wife, poet Denise Duhamel. This
anthology gathers poems centered on the figure
of Jesus and written from different perspectives:
Asian American, Native American, gay, atheist,
and others. Carbò’s latest work is Pinoy Poetics: An
Anthology of Autobiographical and Critical Essays
on Filipino Poetics (2004), in which more than 40
writers of Filipino descent reflect on their poems,
techniques, and sources of inspiration.
Elisabetta MarinoCha, Theresa Hak Kyung (1951–1982)
Even though her life was cut short by a senseless
murder, Cha left a significant mark on Ameri-
can literature. Most of her literary and visual art
works are quite autobiographical, but they also
have a universal appeal since they explore, among
other things, issues of gender, migration and
dislocation.
Cha was born in Korea during the Korean War
to parents who had been raised in Manchuria,
China, as first-generation Korean exiles, and who32 Carbò, Nick