This chapter considers the hemisphere as a geopolitical heuristic for Asian American literature. While the era of 1965 to 1996 is considered pivotal for new growth in Asian American populations in the United States because of liberal reforms in immigration policy, it was also one in which the expansion of the global Cold War led US power to brutally target newly decolonized and revolutionary societies in its fight against Communism. This chapter examines how diasporic Asian literatures from the period illuminate the mechanisms of “development” from the Cold War to the neoliberal, postsocialist present. Beyond registering the presence of Asians in the Americas since the sixteenth century, the chapter argues that various “hemispheric imaginings” grapple with the disavowed operations of political violence by which Latin American and Asian nations were “transitioned” from a region of nonaligned, postcolonial republics to capitalist states ruled by comprador and transnational elites. At the same time, a hemispheric imaginary provides a method for reading artists’ visions of alternate, shared futures and South–South, transracial solidarities that continue to haunt the postcolonial world.

Multiculturalism affects institutions crucial to our daily lives: government, workplaces, schools, historical records, the media, laws, and art. It justifies who can participate in politics and whether those such as Asian Americans who have been historically excluded and voiceless will be heard and thus influence policies and resource distribution. This political terrain affects the literary marketplace that may incorporate authors and communities of color who have been historically ignored or rejected for their criticism of Eurocentrism or failure to uphold white norms. Working within a field coming into prominence alongside and because of multiculturalism, Asian American writers understand themselves and their texts to be part of reclaiming forgotten experiences and histories as well as diversifying the imaginative landscape of US literature. As unintended consequences of multiculturalism’s emphasis on Asian cuisine, holidays, or other cultural traditions, Asian Americans are perceived as having a culture that benefits and disadvantages them in terms of citizenship and spheres of agency, denying them full citizenship, upward mobility, equal pay, or artistic capabilities.