The Big Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Chinese-American and Japanese-American Literature - Softcover

Chan, Jeffery Paul; Chin, Frank; Inada, Lawson Fusao; Wong, Shawn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452010764 ISBN 13: 9780452010765

Publisher: Plume, 2006

Synopsis

An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature
 
When the first volume of this collection of Asian American literature appeared in 1974, it showed readers the roots and the richness of Chinese American and Japanese American writing. The authors called their anthology Aiiieeeee! because that was the shout, the scream, often the only sound coming from the yellow man or woman in American movies, television, or comic books. But as that work demonstrated, the Asian American writer, long ignored and excluded from participating in American culture, has an articulate and creative voice.
 
The Big Aiiieeeee!—an entirely new and truly comprehensive collection—brings together the earliest writings to appear in America, such as the revealing An English-Chinese Phrase Book used by the first generation of Chinese immigrants, and recent stories and essays, such as “Come All Ye Asian American Writers” by Frank Chin, about the importance of Chinese and Japanese heroic tradition. Here we all can now learn of the pain, the dreams, the betrayals, and the indelible sense of “otherness” of Americans of Chinese and Japanese descent, in a seminal collection of poetry, prose, and drama—writings filled with rage and beauty, memory and vision.
 
“Here is a Gold Mountain of voices. In the telling and retelling of our stories, we create a community of memory. This huge collection invites all of us to become listeners and to claim America.”—Ronald Takai, author of Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans

About this title

About the Author:

Shawn Wong was born in Oakland, California, in 1949. He is a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. He has coedited the much-acclaimed Yardbird anthologies as well as Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers, and The Big Aiiieeeee!

From Publishers Weekly:

"Aiiieeeee!" is the angry cry of Asian Americans, "long ignored and forcibly excluded from creative participation in American culture." In their incendiary introduction, the editors of this absorbing collection condemn the "white racist imagination" that has permeated such popular Asian American works as Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club . The writings themselves--remarkably diverse, ranging from haiku to autobiography--present a subtler, often poignant picture of Chinese and Japanese immigrants and their American-born childrenpk striving to adjust to an unwelcoming new culture. The best-known piece is an excerpt from Louis Chu's novel Eat a Bowl of Tea ; other works are more obscure but no less vivid. In the short story "Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian," Sui Sin Far, one of several eloquent women writers included, describes a young girl's struggle for identity in late 19th-century America. "Why did God make us to be hooted and stared at? Papa is English, Mamma2 "m"s in text is Chinese. Why couldn't we have been either one thing or the other?" The editors' previous collection was Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0452010764
• ISBN 13: 9780452010765
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 636