10 - Asian American Short Fiction and the Contingencies of Form, 1930s–1960s

Summary

The period spanning the 1930s to the 1960s is pivotal to Asian American literary history in that it witnessed both the early development of the Asian American novel and a phenomenal growth of Asian American short fiction. This chapter describes the work of Asian American writers, Toshio Mori, Hisaye Yamamoto, Bienvenido N. Santos and Carlos Bulosan. Mori and Yamamoto participated in ethnic cultural codification through portrayals of Japanese immigrant life from Nisei perspectives. The Chauvinist is perhaps the most speculative of Mori's stories about prewar Japanese immigrant life. Yamamoto's Yoneko's Earthquake is a work widely celebrated for its multiple layers of meaning and rich symbolism. Scent of Apples is paradigmatic of Santos's fictional construction of the predicament facing Filipino immigrants. Short fiction legitimizes small-scale disruption of the patterns of continuity closely associated with the novel form, by engaging with major positions about the latter's realist premises and actual functions.