Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I History and Genre
- Part II Graphic Novels and the Quest for an American Diversity
- 10 Expressions of Jewishness alongside Grief in American Graphic Novels
- 11 Black Looking and Looking Black
- 12 African American New History-Writing in Graphic Narratives
- 13 Coming to America, “Land of the Free”
- 14 Spatiotemporal Projections
- 15 Queer Graphic Novels
- 16 American Women’s Lives in Graphic Novels
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
- References
13 - Coming to America, “Land of the Free”
Asian American Representations in Graphic Narrative
from Part II - Graphic Novels and the Quest for an American Diversity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2024
By
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I History and Genre
- Part II Graphic Novels and the Quest for an American Diversity
- 10 Expressions of Jewishness alongside Grief in American Graphic Novels
- 11 Black Looking and Looking Black
- 12 African American New History-Writing in Graphic Narratives
- 13 Coming to America, “Land of the Free”
- 14 Spatiotemporal Projections
- 15 Queer Graphic Novels
- 16 American Women’s Lives in Graphic Novels
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
- References
Summary
Stories of Asian immigration to North America have developed a series of recognizable tropes, from exile for economic or political reasons to arrival and the subsequent struggles of discrimination, assimilation, and self-identity. This chapter identifies the preferred themes of graphic novel publishers, who continue to seek and legitimize a familiar model of Asian American narrative: that of origin and identity stories, often autobiographical in nature, in which authors grapple with assimilation difficulties and express identity challenges, notably when self-acceptance and community acceptance are not always aligned (e.g., in celebrated works by Adrian Tomine and Gene Luen Yang). The chapter also considers other types of narratives: family stories in which a mixed heritage challenges social norms (Lynda Barry), graphic memoirs from second-generation Asian Americans on their immigrant mothers and their cultural transition, and refugee narratives from authors of the Vietnamese diaspora who reflect on the Vietnam War and the perilous immigration of “boat people.”
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel , pp. 226 - 241Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
References
Abe, F., and Nomura, T. (authors), Ishikawa, R., and Sasaki, M. (illustrators). (2021). We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration. Seattle, WA: Chin Music Press.Google Scholar
Bataclan, B. (2020). Fe: A Traumatized Son’s Graphic Memoir. San Francisco, CA: Philippine American Writers & Artists.Google Scholar
Beaty, B., and Woo, B. (2016). The Greatest Comic Book of All Time: Symbolic Capital and the Field of American Comics Books. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bui, T. (2018). The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir. New York: Abrams ComicArts.Google Scholar
Cadden, M. (2014). “But You Are Still a Monkey”: American Born Chinese and Racial Self-Acceptance. The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children’s Literature, 17(2), n.p.Google Scholar
Chan, S. (1991). Asian Americans: An Interpretive History. New York: Twayne Publishers.Google Scholar
Chiu, M., ed. (2015). Drawing New Color Lines: Transnational Asian American Graphic Narratives. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Chiu, M. (2018). Who Needs a Chinese American Superhero? Gene LuenYang and Sonny Liew’s The Shadow Hero as Asian American Historiography. In Cutter, M. J. and Schlund-Vials, C. J., eds., Redrawing the Historical Past: History, Memory, and Multiethnic Graphic Novels. Athens: University of Georgia Press, pp. 87–105.Google Scholar
Chiu, M., and Roan, J. (2019). Defining Asian American Graphic Narrative. In Lee, J. and Cheung, F., eds., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Web.Google Scholar
Choy, P. P., Dong, L., and Hom, M. K., eds. (1995). The Coming Man: 19th Century American Perceptions of the Chinese. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
de Jesús, M. L. (2004). Liminality and Mestiza Consciousness in Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons, MELUS, 29(1), 219–252.Google Scholar
Ho, J. (2018). The Productive Pedagogy of Ambiguity in Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons. In Mathison, Y., ed., Growing Up Asian American in Young Adult Fiction. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, pp. 63–78.Google Scholar
Kiyama, H. Y., and Schodt, F. L. (trans.) (1999 [1931]). The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904–1924. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press.Google Scholar
Køhlert, F. B. (2019). Serial Selves: Identity and Representation in Autobiographical Comics. Newark, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Lowe, L. (1996). Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Matsuoka, J. (2003). Poston: Camp II, Block 21: Daily Life in an Internment Camp. San Mateo, CA: AACP.Google Scholar
Nguyen, M. T. (2012). The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Nguyen, V. T. (2002). Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Song, M. H. (2010). How Good It Is to Be a Monkey: Comics, Racial Formation, and American Born Chinese. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 43(1), 73–92.Google Scholar
Takei, G. (author), Becker, H. (illustrator), et al. (2019). They Called Us Enemy. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf.Google Scholar
Tomine, A. (2020). The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly.Google Scholar
Troung, M. (2016). Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961–1963, trans. D. Homel. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp.Google Scholar
Troung, M. (2017). Saigon Calling: London 1963–1975, trans. D. Homel. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp.Google Scholar
Wong, D. H. T. (2012). Escape to Gold Mountain: A Graphic History of the Chinese in North America. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp.Google Scholar
Yang, G. L. (author), and Gurihiru, (artist). (2020). Superman Smashes the Klan. New York: DC Comics.Google Scholar
Yang, G. L. (author), and Liew, S. (artist). (2014). The Shadow Hero. New York: First Second.Google Scholar
Yang, G. L. (author and artist), and Pien, L. (colorist). (2021). Dragon Hoops. New York: First Second.Google Scholar