Book contents
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1965–1996
- Asian American Literature In Transition
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1965–1996
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Series Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Immigration, Migration, and Movement
- Part II Politics, Art, and Activism
- Part III Institutionalization and Canon Formation
- Part IV Diaspora and the Transnational Turn
- Chapter 15 Rethinking Nationalistic Attachments through Narratives of Return
- Chapter 16 Diasporic Longings
- Chapter 17 Transnational Sexualities
- Chapter 18 Intimacy, Imperialism, and America: Revisiting Post-47 Postcolonial and Asian American Writing
- Chapter 19 Hemispheric Imaginings and Global Transitions: The Geopolitics of Asian American Literature in the Americas
- References
- Index
Chapter 16 - Diasporic Longings
from Part IV - Diaspora and the Transnational Turn
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2021
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1965–1996
- Asian American Literature In Transition
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1965–1996
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Series Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Immigration, Migration, and Movement
- Part II Politics, Art, and Activism
- Part III Institutionalization and Canon Formation
- Part IV Diaspora and the Transnational Turn
- Chapter 15 Rethinking Nationalistic Attachments through Narratives of Return
- Chapter 16 Diasporic Longings
- Chapter 17 Transnational Sexualities
- Chapter 18 Intimacy, Imperialism, and America: Revisiting Post-47 Postcolonial and Asian American Writing
- Chapter 19 Hemispheric Imaginings and Global Transitions: The Geopolitics of Asian American Literature in the Americas
- References
- Index
Summary
Using diaspora as a framework for reading Asian American literature expands the geographical and temporal contours of what it means to be Asian American. Although late-twentieth-century US popular culture was marked by multicultural ideologies of American citizenship, “diaspora” captures another way of thinking about Asian Americans: as immigrants who are subject to multiple projects of nationalism, and who embody diverse forms of citizenship. Whereas writers like Bharati Mukherjee reproduce dominant ideologies of US exceptionalism and multicultural citizenship, for writers such as Meena Alexander, the production of diasporic locality ripples across generations, as she ties together South Asia with North America, the Middle East with Europe. Rewriting immigration as a story of diaspora emphasizes the social, economic, political, and psychic ties that immigrants construct to Asia and to the Americas. Diaspora thus reconfigures who and what we know as “Asian American,” moving away from linear narratives of departure and arrival, towards transnational categories of belonging and citizenship.
- Type
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- Information
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1965–1996 , pp. 297 - 309Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021