UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Between Sovereignties: Chinese Minor Settler Literature Across the Pacific A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Yu-ting Huang 2015 © Copyright by Yu-ting Huang 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Between Sovereignties: Chinese Minor Settler Literature Across the Pacific by Yu-ting Huang Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles Professor Shu-mei Shih, Co-chair Professor Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Co-chair Taking as its subject Chinese immigrant-settler literature across the Pacific, this study introduces the concept of minor settler to describe settlers who are marginalized within settler society, as later-coming immigrants, racialized minority, or colonized peoples. Maintaining that their experiences of settlement differ from those of dominant settlers, and also foregrounding their role and responsibility as settlers perpetuating Indigenous dispossession, this dissertation is motivated by two research questions: (1) how minor settler aspiration for identity and belonging may corroborate settler ideology of non-native right to place, and (2) whether and how their minority struggle may lead to productive engagement with Indigenous decolonization. To answer these questions, I examine contemporary literary fictions by Chinese minor settler authors in Hawai‘i, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Taiwan. Using critical insights from settler colonial studies and Indigenous critical theories, I analyze Chinese minor settler narratives against each location’s layered settler colonial history, Indigenous political expressions, and racial and !ii national discourses, illustrating how these different conditions of literary production give rise to specific themes, formal qualities, and political commitments in minor settler literary narratives across national contexts. In each case I scrutinize instances where minor settler articulations facilitate ongoing settler hegemony and Indigenous silence, and also seek moments when they turn to Indigenous historiography and values for alternative relations and conversations. This study concludes that minor settler narratives can and do engage with both dominant settler and Indigenous narratives, as these coincide on the same geographical site and through interlocking historical processes. Despite their marginality, in narrating identity, belonging, place, and history, minor settler authors commit into writing their understanding of nation and subjectivity, and contribute to the ongoing negotiations between settler and Indigenous sovereignties. !iii This dissertation of Yu-ting Huang is approved. Eleanor K. Kaufman Shu-mei Shih, Co-chair Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Co-chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 !iv To my family. !v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter 1. 28 "Growing up Local": Narrating Asian Minor Settler Identity in Hawai‘i Chapter 2. 64 Being Ethnic in a Bicultural Nation: Acts of Translation in Chinese New Zealand Fictions Chapter 3. 115 From Survival to Survivance: Decolonizing Ethics in Settler Novels in Taiwan Conclusion 172 On Minor Settler Belatedness Bibliography 176 !vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project began in Los Angeles, was written mostly in Taiwan, and is taking its final shape in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts as I type these words. It is both bizarre and fitting that it was in Los Angeles, the paradigmatic postmodern third space, that I first came to perceive my identity as a Han settler in my home country of Taiwan and a foreigner-resident on unceded Native American land. Wherever I stand, my belonging is a debt. This dissertation acknowledges, before all else, my unshakable responsibilities to Indigenous peoples and lands. Yet in the process of writing this dissertation, I have also accumulated numerous debts that are immediate and deeply felt. Many people’s love and support sustain the research and emotional work in these pages: First and foremost, I will remain forever grateful to Shu-mei Shih for inviting me to consider comparative literature as an intellectual calling during our first chance meeting in Taiwan almost ten years ago, and for being my mentor and advocate in the many years that follow. Shu-mei's unwavering support, trail-blazing scholarship, and intellectual curiosity provide the unparalleled foundations for my intellectual adventure. Her guidance and friendship nurture my confidence as a scholar that I could not otherwise obtain. This project, and my career as a comparatist, would have been truly impossible without her. I am equally and infinitely indebted to Elizabeth DeLoughrey, who introduced me to the literary worlds of the Indigenous Pacific and new ways of looking at postcolonial literature environmentally and tidalectically. She keeps my feet on the literary grounds when my reasoning strays and pushes me to reach for theoretical heights when my thinking drags. Many of the ideas in these pages are hashed out during our sun-drenched walks with her adorable schnauzers and I am eternally thankful for her friendship and encouragement. I also thank Eleanor Kaufman deeply for cultivating my knowledge and interests in theory and philosophy since the first year of my PhD work, and for the many wonderful and heartening conversations we have had since about theory, scholarship, and academic career. Eleanor's enthusiasm in exploring new !vii theoretical territories is infectious and she has never ceased being my most trusted advisor and ally. To my amazingly inspiring and supportive doctoral committee, I owe everything for becoming the scholar and thinker I am today. Jenny Sharpe and Saree Makdisi both helped to shape my doctoral project by being readers and reviewers of my work. Saree in particular gave me much inspiration and guidance during my earlier study on eighteenth-century literature, which informs my research here in distant but important ways. Mishuana Goeman's generous advice gave the work much needed circumspection and sensitivity with regard to Native studies and Native theories, for which I am deeply grateful. Gary Pak and Syaman Rapongan, by replying to my inquiries about their literary endeavors, gave me motivations to continue my research as a project with real-life consequences. Also, the writing and research of this dissertation are financially supported by the Asian Institute and the Graduate Division of the University of California, Los Angeles, in the respective forms of Asian Institute Graduate Fellowship and Dissertation Year Fellowship, and I thank them for their confidence in the project and their generous support. I must express my boundless appreciation for my colleagues in the Department of Comparative Literature: learning, teaching, conversing, and partying with them have given me the intellectual sharpness and emotional soundness to last as long as I do. Nasia Anam, Alexei Nowak, Nic Testerman, Thomas Chen, Chien-Heng Wu, and Zen Dochterman are not only loyal friends and brilliant scholars, but are also active contributors to this project; they are my sounding boards, TAs, therapists, first readers, and editors. Thank you for being such true friends and amazing human beings. Outside of UCLA, I thank Seneca Lindsey and Jamie Hilder for always being on the other end of the phone line in the last difficult months of this writing. Finally, I must thank my family for indulging my decision to live an ocean away, and for taking me in and caring for my needs and wants during the last two years when I wrote the words that are now this dissertation. Mom, Dad, and Gordon, your steadfast love and support are the only reason I dare to step so far away, knowing that I can always come home to you. This dissertation is dedicated to you. !viii VITA 2004 B.A., Foreign Languages and Literatures National Taiwan University Taipei, Taiwan 2007 M.A., English National Taiwan University Taipei, Taiwan 2008-2010 Taiwan Ministry of Education Scholarship Ministry of Education, Taiwan 2008-2013 Fulbright Graduate Study Grant Institution of International Education 2009, 2010 Chancellor’s Prize Award, University of California, Los Angeles 2009-2010 Teaching Assistant Department of Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles 2010-2011 Teaching Associate Department of Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles 2011-2013 Teaching Fellow Department of Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles 2012 C.Phil., Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 2013-2014 Asian Institute Graduate Fellowship UCLA International Institute 2014-2015 Dissertation Year Fellowship UCLA Graduate Division PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS Huang, Yu-ting. “The Archipelagos of Taiwan Literature: Comparative Methods and Island Writings in Taiwan.” In Comparatizing Taiwan, edited by Shu-mei Shih and Ping-hui Liao, 80–99. New York: Routledge, 2014. !ix —. “Reading Minor Settler Narratives: Temporality and Territoriality in Chinese New Zealand Fictions.” Paper presented at the annual meeting for American Comparative Literature Association, Seattle, Washington, March 26-29, 2015. —. “Building a Home on Contested Grounds: Imagining Indigenous Land in Asian Hawaiian ‘Local’ Writings.” Paper presented at the annual meeting for American Comparative Literature Association, New York City, March 20-23, 2014. —. “Women’s Bodies after the Apocalypse: The Liquefaction of Textual, Sexual and Physical Bodies in Keri Hulme’s stonefish.” Paper presented at the