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Asian American Art and Literature Eugenio D World Languages and Cultures Publications World Languages and Cultures 2001 Asian American Art and Literature Eugenio D. Matibag Iowa State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/language_pubs Part of the American Art and Architecture Commons, Asian American Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons The ompc lete bibliographic information for this item can be found at http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ language_pubs/81. For information on how to cite this item, please visit http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ howtocite.html. This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in World Languages and Cultures Publications by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Asian American Art and Literature Abstract Asian American literature and art cannot be explained by one set of aesthetics or a single method or approach. The sheer diversity of the artists and their backgrounds and even the variety and change within the oeuvre of an individual artist simply defy neat categorization. Some artists emphasize personal experience and reflection; others reflect on historical occurrences and cultural phenomena; others tend toward sheer experimentation with forms of expression and types of media or discourse. Keywords Asian American Studies Disciplines American Art and Architecture | Asian American Studies | Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Comments This is an encyclopedia entry from Encyclopedia of American Studies 1 (2001): 189. Posted with permission. This book chapter is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/language_pubs/81 ASIAN AMERICANS Where do we draw the boundaries? Do films Wei, William, The Asian American Movement (Temple Univ. with a clear Asian American theme, but shot Press 1993). by a multiracial crew-such as Oliver Stone's Wong, Eugene F., On Visual Media Racism: Asians in the Heaven and Earth (1993) and David Cronen­ American Motion Pictures (Arno Press 1978). berg's M. Butterfly (1993)-qualify as Asian ROBERTA UNO American? A 1990 reader's poll in A Magazine underscored these questions as readers freely mixed Asian and Asian American Art and Literature Asian American screen stars and films in their Asian American literature and art cannot be ex­ choices. As the future of each discipline is consid­ plained by one set of aesthetics or a single method ered, these questions become increasingly relevant or approach. The sheer diversity of the artists and in terms of demographic shifts (both changes in the their backgrounds and even the variety and change composition of Asian communities and the increase within the oeuvre of an individual artist simply defy in racial and ethnic hybridity), the movement of neat categorization. Some artists emphasize personal Asians and Asian Americans transnationally, and experience and reflection; others reflect on historical the positive impact that the Asian American move­ occurrences and cultural phenomena; others tend ment has on social institutions, attitudes, and cul­ toward sheer experimentation with forms of expres­ tural expectations. sion and types of media or discourse. Literature: Major Themes. Asian American BIBLIOGRAPHY authors have explored issues central to the Asian Berson, Misha, ed., Between Worlds: Contemporary Asian­ American experience: the legacy of the past; the en­ American Plays (Theatre Communications Group 1990). counter of diverse cultures; the challenges of rac­ Choy, Christine, "Images of Asian-Americans in Films ism, discrimination, and exclusion; and the dreams and Television," in Ethnic Images in American Film and achieved and dreams deferred of an immigrant na­ Television, ed. by Randall Miller (Balch Inst. 1978). tion. In the process of developing and defining it­ Feng, Peter, "In Search of Asian American Cinema," Cin­ self, then, Asian American literature speaks to the easte 21 (1995):1-2. very heart of what it means to be American. The Houston, Velina Hasu, ed., The Politics of Life: Four Plays authors of this literature above all concern them­ by Asian American Women (Temple Univ. Press 1993). selves with identity, with the question of becom­ Houston, Velina Hasu, ed., But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise: ing and being American, of being accepted, not "for­ New Asian American Plays (Temple Univ. Press 1997). Johnson, George Toshio, "'Hope Floats': Hollywood's eign." Elaine Kim characterizes Asian American Latest Fling with Asian America," A Magazine (Novem­ literature as mainly one of "protest and exile, a lit­ ber 30, 1990):52-54. erature about place and displacement, a literature Lee, Josephine, Performing Asian America: Race and Eth­ concerned with psychic and physical 'home'­ nicity on the Contemporary Stage (Temple Univ. Press searching for and claiming a 'home' or longing for 1997). a final'homecoming."' Leong, Russell, ed., Moving the Image: Independent Asian Distinguished Asian American authors and Pacific American Media Arts (Univ. of Calif. Press 1991). works include Korean American Younghill Kang's Perkins, Kathy, and Roberta Uno, eds., Contemporary The Grass Roof(1931) and his book about life in New Plays by Women of Color (Routledge 1996). York, East Goes West (1937); Chinese American Louis Tajima, Renee, "Lotus Blossoms Don't Bleed: Images of Asian Women," in Making Waves: An Anthology of Writ­ Chu's Eat a Bowl of Tea (1961), also about life in New ings by and about Asian American Women, ed. by Asian York; Filipino American Carlos Bulosan's experi­ Women United of California (Beacon Press 1989). ences as a migrant worker in Letters from America Uno, Roberta, ed., Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays (1942) and America Is in the Heart (1946); and Ko­ by Asian American Women (Univ. of Mass. Press 1993). rean Canadian writer and video artist Theresa Hak 189 ,., r ASIAN AMERICANS Eminent anthologies of Asian American writing not only indicate the emergence and coalescence of a body of literature that could be called Asian American, but also signal the form by which that body of literature can be recognized by the read­ ing public and assigned as reading in academic set­ tings. Such anthologies include the aforementioned Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers (1974), edited by Jeffrey Paul Chan, Frank Chin, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong. This an­ thology, devoted exclusively to Chinese American and Japanese American works, was followed by the more inclusive The Big Aiiieeeee!!! (1991), whereas Jessica T. Hagedorn's Charlie Chan Is Dead: An An­ thology of Asian American Fiction (1993) showcases imaginative prose representative of all the major 0 ROBERT FOOTHORAPIBL.ACK STAR immigrant groups, with the exception of Southeast Novelist Amy Tan in Guilin, China, where part of the movie version of The Joy Luck Club was filmed. Asia. Garrett Hongo edited The Open Boat, Poems from Asian America (1993). All of the erotic stories and poems of On a Bed of Rice (1995), an anthology Kyung Cha's acclaimed Dictee (1982). Chang-Rae edited by Geraldine Kudaka, contradict the racist Lee, of South Korea, won the PEN Hemingway notion that Asian Americans are asexual or pas­ Award for the Best First Novel in 1995 for Native sive in their sexuality. Speaker (1995). Other celebrated works are Maxine Hong King­ Artistic Genres. Art has many meanings and ston's groundbreaking and widely acclaimed mem­ diverse significance for those who create it or be­ oirs, The Woman Warrior (1976) and China Men hold it or in some way participate in it. It is diffi­ (1980); Frank Chin's coedited Chinese Japanese cult to define one universally Asian American aes­ American anthology, Aiiieeeee! (1974) and his novel thetic or artistic ideology, yet some generalizations Donald Duk (1991); Cynthia Kadohata's account of can be ventured. There exists a sense in this emer­ Japanese Americans in the post-internment years gent Asian American culture that "art" is not the in The Floating World (1988); Amy Tan's best-sell­ special province of the professional artist, not some­ ing family chronicles, The Joy Luck Club (1989, the thing merely to be seen and consumed. Art, some­ basis for the 1993 film) and The Kitchen God's Wife what like Asian-based religious practice and spiri­ (1991); Garrett Hongo's poetry collections Yellow tuality, forms a part of everyday life. Art belongs Light (1988) and The River of Heaven (1989); David to people and not to a special class of artists and Henry Hwang's drama, M. Butterfly (1988), the first artisans. Nor can the category of Asian American play by an Asian American to be produced on art be limited to that produced exclusively by Asian Broadway; Gish Jen's comic novel Typical Ameri­ Americans, for it must embrace as well those works can (1991); Laurence Yep's young adult fictions that originate in Asian countries but are imported Child of the Owl (1977) and Dragon of the Lost Sea and translated or otherwise adapted for American (1982); Hisaye Yamamoto's collection Seventeen Syl­ reception. lables and Other Stories (1988); Shawn Wong's nov­ Artistic contributions to American domestic cul­ els Homebase (1979) and American Knees (1995); and ture abound, as seen in the distinctly Japanese plant­ M. Evelina Galang's stories in Her Wild American ings of bonsai and ikebana; Chinese brush paint­ Self (1995). ing; the calligraphy of China, Korea, and Japan; 190 ASIAN AMERICANS Chinese ceramics and Japanese porcelains; rugs from Turkey, the Caucasus, Persia, the Turkoman j of Central Asia, India, Tibet, and China and, of course, the celebrated Asian American culinary arts. Many Americans are familiar with the art of Japa­ nese paper folding called origami. In Japanese-in­ fluenced decor one might find the thick bedding consisting of mattress and cover called futon, shoji screens, and tatami mats.
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