INTRODUCTION TO ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATUR

This course investigates “Asian Americans” and “Asian American literature” as something created thanks to two larger social forces: (1) migration, and its related issues of xenophobia, nationalism, settler violence, imprisonment, and working class struggle; and (2) imperialism, often the driving force that creates the migrant. We’ll adopt a historical emphasis and read a novel, poetry collection, or memoir a week, as well as many primary sources, such as movement journals and little magazines, oral histories, 19th century political cartoons, and Supreme Court cases—which may interest those of you considering law school!

We will also read documents from the Chinese exclusion period alongside Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men and the poems written by migrants detained at Angel Island and poems by Mitusye Yamada, who was interned during World War II. We’ll read Carlos Bulosan and Sujatha Gidla’s narratives of proletarian power. And we’ll conclude the class by reading books responding to American wars in Asia: Richard E. Kim’s novel The Martyred, Jean Makdisi’s Beirut Fragments, and Kamila Shamsie’s post-9/11 novel, Home Fire.

Some of the primary sources we’ll reading include: cartoons, pamphlets, and op-eds for and against Chinese exclusion; texts from the Ghadar party of Sikh and Punjabi anti-colonialists; an audio recording of a South Asian woman who traveled on the Komagata Maru; manifestos from the Third World Liberation Front; and Supreme Court decisions on immigration.

Students will (1) research Asian American little magazines and create a response on their own; (2) write regular bluebook responses to the reading (graded on completion) and complete very easy regular quizzes; (3) complete a midterm exam; and (4) write a final term paper. I hope we build community together in this class!