Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America (Race and American Culture)

In Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America , Viet Nguyen argues that Asian American intellectuals have idealized Asian America, ignoring its saturation with capitalist practices. This idealization of Asian America means that Asian American intellectuals can neither grapple with their culture's ideological diversity nor recognize their own involvement with capitalist practices such as the selling of racial identity. Making his case through the example of literature, which remains a critical arena of cultural production for Asian Americans, Nguyen demonstrates that literature embodies the complexities, conflicts, and potential future options of Asian American culture. Contents......Page 13 Introduction: A Crisis of Representation......Page 17 ONE: On the Origins of Asian American Literature: The Eaton Sisters and the Hybrid Body......Page 47 TWO: Wounded Bodies and the Cold War: Freedom, Materialism, and Revolution in Asian American Literature, 1946–1957......Page 75 THREE: The Remasculinization of Chinese America: Race, Violence, and the Novel......Page 101 FOUR: Representing Reconciliation: Le Ly Hayslip and the Emblematic Victim......Page 121 FIVE: Queer Bodies and Subaltern Spectators: Guerrilla Theater, Hollywood Melodrama, and the Filipino (American) Novel......Page 139 Conclusion: Model Minorities and Bad Subjects......Page 157 Notes......Page 187 Bibliography......Page 211 A......Page 228 B......Page 230 C......Page 231 D......Page 232 F......Page 233 H......Page 234 I......Page 235 M......Page 236 P......Page 238 R......Page 239 S......Page 240 V......Page 241 Z......Page 242 Machine generated contents note: ONE On the Origins of Asian American Literature: The Eaton Sisters and the Hybrid Body 33 TWO Wounded Bodies and the Cold War: Freedom, Materialism, and Revolution in Asian American Literature, 1946-1957 61 THREE The Remasculinization of Chinese America: Race, Violence, and the Novel 87 FOUR Representing Reconciliation: Le Ly Hayslip and the Emblematic Victim 107 FIVE Queer Bodies and Subaltern Spectators: Guerrilla Theater, Hollywood Melodrama, and the Filipino (American) Novel 125 Conclusion: Model Minorities and Bad Subjects 143. Viet Nguyen argues that Asian American intellectuals need to examine their own assumptions about race, culture and politics, and makes his case through the example of literature