Asian American Writers and Their Works
Asian American authors frequently document their own and their family’s cultural experiences in their writing. Many of these experiences are related to questions surrounding belonging, multiple identities, and self discovery. Such topics are often relatable to members of immigrant families and Asian American communities in the United States. Writers like Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Alexander Chee, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Amy Tan have recorded personal moments, the histories of their past, and the stories of their heritage, to better understand themselves and the people they love. Their experiences and perspectives, while in some ways unique, are in many ways resonant with Asian Americans across the United States.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and Dictee
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, a former up-and-coming Korean American author, is known for her novel, Dictee (French for “dictation”). She wrote Dictee to trace her mother’s ethnic and cultural roots and to find personal connection with her mother’s story. The novel is experimental and mimics the format of a scrapbook. Letters, poetry, handwriting, photographs, maps, and diagrams are scattered throughout the book, discussing her mother’s experience growing up in and as an immigrant from Korea. Cha experiments with syntax and repetition to discuss themes of assimilation and identity. She explores languages, switching from French to English to reflect France’s influence on Korea, and divides the novel into chapters based on themes represented by the eight Greek muses. The novel shows how over the course of her lifetime, the author’s mother had an identity influenced in different ways by different nations and cultures. In order to understand her own identity as an Asian American woman, Cha looks into her mother’s past for answers, putting together the pieces.
Alexander Chee
Photos: The New York Times, Alexander Chee
Alexander Chee is an author of fiction and a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth University. In a series of letters written to a younger writer, Chee discusses his experiences looking for and finding Asian American community to better understand and grapple with his identity. In Chee’s essays, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, he talks of formative events in the United States that have shaped his perspective and career, encouraging aspiring authors to continue to write and to have an audience they want to write for. Chee explores the value and meaning of writing, digging deep into its impact on himself and others.
Maxine Hong Kingston and The Woman Warrior
Author Maxine Hong Kingston, is best known for her writing on the Asian American experience. In her novel, The Woman Warrior, she discusses growing up Chinese American in the United States and recounts the stories told to her about her family’s past in China. Kingston uses imaginative and fantastical elements, even pulling from the story of Mulan, the tale of a young woman who saved China. She likens herself to a similar hero who has had to undergo immense transformation. Fable and history are closely linked, often blurred together and interwoven to tell the story of how Kingston sees herself in the context of the circumstances around her.
Photos: National Book Foundation, Book cover
Amy Tan and The Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan is a Chinese American writer well known for her novel turned film, The Joy Luck Club. The book discusses familial relationships within a friendship group of Chinese American immigrants and their daughters. Each mother-daughter pairing has their own plotline, with the daughter reflecting on her childhood and coming to understand her mother’s impact on her adolescence and adulthood. They reflect on the clashes of cultural disagreements and misunderstandings between themselves and their mothers, seeking to understand the motivations of the women who raised them.
Each author explores themes that are connected to those of others. Relationships, identities, and self understanding are tied into their stories. Asian American literature brings together different and seemingly unrelated experiences to form cohesive reflections on origin and culture. Their written works reflect experiences many Asian Americans have had growing up in the U.S. and consequently are often relatable and meaningful to audiences.
Vocabulary List:
Asian American (noun): An American of Asian descent
Syntax (noun): sentence structure
Assimilation (noun): the process of imitating and fitting into a new culture
Formative (adjective): very influential
Interwoven (past participle): mixed together
Greek muses (noun): Goddesses from Greek mythology
Cohesive (adjective): unified
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phoebe McChesney is a student at Oberlin College in the United States, majoring in Politics. She has interned in the U.S. House of Representatives and served as a Page in the U.S. Senate. Phoebe would love to work in Congress, with a federal agency, or on foreign policy and international relations one day. She is a blogger for her college and is interested in America House Kyiv’s Ukraine-American work.