Asian American fiction after 1965 : transnational fantasies of economic mobility

Author / Creator

Fan, Christopher T., author

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Summary

"The 1980s and 1990's witnessed the East Asian economic "miracle" and the growth of Asian-American literature as part of the ascendancy of multiculturalism in the United States. For Christopher Fan...

"The 1980s and 1990's witnessed the East Asian economic "miracle" and the growth of Asian-American literature as part of the ascendancy of multiculturalism in the United States. For Christopher Fan, the simultaneity of these developments raises the question, "What is Asian about contemporary Asian-American fiction?" In the 1960s and 1970s, the Asian American movement rejected this question on anti-orientalist grounds, insisting instead on political and cultural claims to American citizenship and identity on the one hand, and racial identification with the Third World (rather than Asia exclusively) on the other. In Science Fictionality, Fan considers Asian American literature in the context of the Northeastern Asian (Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea) political economy and issues of class and professionalization within the Asian American community in the United States since 1965 when immigration from Asia grew. He grounds the demographic category of Asian America in concrete economic relations to show how historically specific routes of capital have racialized Asian Americans. Contemporary Asian American fiction writers, who were often the offspring of high-skilled immigrant parents, have sought to balance expectations from within the Asian American community to pursue a professional career in STEM with their own pursuit of literature and fiction. The mediation between these "two cultures"-science and art-has, Fan argues, shaped characterization, setting, diction, metaphor, and theme in fiction by Chang Rae-Lee, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Asian American authors, whose works often explore how STEM professions don't come close to translating to heroic status in the U.S. What awaits instead is the disappointment and frustration that comes from deprofessionalization, proletarianization, and middle-management"--

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