65serves as a counterpoint to Rio’s narration, chal-
lenging and questioning some of her statements.
The novel is concerned with the processes
through which individuals and nations construct
their identities. An important factor in these pro-
cesses is the characters’ interactions with popular
culture, from Filipino radio shows to Hollywood
films. The latter symbolize both the United States’s
colonial legacy and neocolonial influence. Films
and other forms of popular culture are simultane-
ously portrayed as a means of escapism, a source of
pleasure, and a potential trigger for self-reflection.
Hagedorn’s descriptions of films, beauty contests,
and sex shows also force the reader to confront the
complex power dynamics between nations, social
classes, and genders implicit in the acts of self-ex-
hibition and spectatorship.
Dogeaters presents a consciously eclectic style
and a fragmented narrative. Fragmentation in
Dogeaters, however, is “not merely the sign of
Hagedorn’s ‘virtuoso’ writing skill, but an expres-
sive tool through which the author contests abso-
lute truths and narratives of progress” (Lee 81).
References to well-established historical accounts
are contrasted with the alternative discourses of
popular culture and gossip. Similarly, while the
main part of the narrative is presented in English,
Hagedorn frequently uses Tagalog terms and re-
fers to Filipino culture, thus positioning mono-
lingual readers unfamiliar with the Philippines as
outsiders.
Dogeaters has been celebrated for its inventive-
ness and uncompromising stance in the portrayal
of Filipino culture and hybrid identities; it has
also been accused of being a Westernized, Ori-
entalist portrait of Filipinos. Hagedorn’s contro-
versial work makes readers question how national
histories, “high” and “low” cultures, and defini-
tions of cultural authenticity are constructed. As
readers explore Hagedorn’s narrative world, they
have to face the myths upon which such concepts
are built.
Bibliography
Davis, Rocío G, ed. MELUS: Special Issue on Filipino
American Literature 29, no. 1 (Spring 2004).
Lee, Rachel C. The Americas of Asian American Litera-
ture: Gendered Fictions of Nation and Transnation.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Marta Vizcaya EchanoDonald Duk Frank Chin (1991)
FRANK CHIN’s male protagonists always struggle
against being stereotyped by the American public
as emasculated model minorities with an exotic
but unthreatening culture. A wish to find a role
model and to be recognized by the role model is
fulfilled in Donald Duk.
Like the main characters in Chin’s two early
plays, Donald Duk, the protagonist in the novel,
suffers from racial self-contempt. He hates every-
thing about himself—his name, his looks, and his
Chinese heritage. Unlike the adult characters in
Chin’s plays who hopelessly struggle in and out of
the decaying Chinatown, Donald Duk, a 12-year-
old Chinatown boy, is reared in a thriving Chi-
nese-American community and tended by a caring
father and other father figures. The novel spans
the 15 days of the Chinese New Year celebration.
During this period, the adolescent protagonist
grows into adulthood and racial self-confidence
by finding such role models as the builders of the
transcontinental railroads and figures in the Chi-
nese heroic tradition: for example, the 108 out-
laws of Water Margin or Kwan Kung of Romance
of the Three Kingdoms. These heroes serve as role
models for the young protagonist to live up to,
and his identification with the image of the role
models at the level of resemblance empowers him
to counter the stereotypes of Chinese taught in his
history class: “The Chinese in America were made
passive and nonassertive by centuries of Confu-
cian thought and Zen mysticism. They were to-
tally unprepared for the violently individualistic
and democratic Americans” (2). Donald’s self-ed-
ucation through his library research into early im-
migrant history and the Chinese heroic tradition
enables him to correct his history teacher’s rac-
ist teachings of Chinese culture and history. The
heroes of the past become Donald’s role modelsDonald Duk 65