Julia H. Lee
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814752555
- eISBN:
- 9780814752579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814752555.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This concluding chapter contemplates the present state of Afro-Asian relations and begins by thinking about the connections that exist between the past and the present in which African Americans and ...
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This concluding chapter contemplates the present state of Afro-Asian relations and begins by thinking about the connections that exist between the past and the present in which African Americans and Asian Americans find themselves. It focuses on the early twentieth century as a way to elaborate the prevalent, late twentieth-century belief that Afro-Asian relations have always been and will always be primarily hostile because of essentialized cultural differences. The most helpful way to understand the long span of Afro-Asian American history is to think of the past as a corrective that develops an unquestioned account of that history and as a gloss that explicates and contextualizes that relationship. The book concludes that writers were already writing and anticipating the early twenty-first century's obsessions; Asian American and African American cultural productions already indicate alternative narratives of American literary history that look beyond traditional field markers.Less
This concluding chapter contemplates the present state of Afro-Asian relations and begins by thinking about the connections that exist between the past and the present in which African Americans and Asian Americans find themselves. It focuses on the early twentieth century as a way to elaborate the prevalent, late twentieth-century belief that Afro-Asian relations have always been and will always be primarily hostile because of essentialized cultural differences. The most helpful way to understand the long span of Afro-Asian American history is to think of the past as a corrective that develops an unquestioned account of that history and as a gloss that explicates and contextualizes that relationship. The book concludes that writers were already writing and anticipating the early twenty-first century's obsessions; Asian American and African American cultural productions already indicate alternative narratives of American literary history that look beyond traditional field markers.
Julia H. Lee
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814752555
- eISBN:
- 9780814752579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814752555.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This introductory chapter states how the book elaborates the grand narratives of interracial relations by emphasizing the fact that Afro-Asian relations actually have a long and densely complicated ...
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This introductory chapter states how the book elaborates the grand narratives of interracial relations by emphasizing the fact that Afro-Asian relations actually have a long and densely complicated history, and that these relationships have been all-inclusive in their politics. The chapter details the historical context of early twentieth-century America's troubled and multifaceted pairing of African and Asian bodies in various legal, cultural, political, and scientific discourses and how it maintained the racial exclusivity of American identity. At the same time, this pairing embodies the nation's general apprehension about the racialized body's relationship to American identity. This study also intends to capture how various racialized groups were influenced by each other in their struggles to negotiate the reality of the nation's exclusionary nature and in their imagining of political structures that might resolve that injustice.Less
This introductory chapter states how the book elaborates the grand narratives of interracial relations by emphasizing the fact that Afro-Asian relations actually have a long and densely complicated history, and that these relationships have been all-inclusive in their politics. The chapter details the historical context of early twentieth-century America's troubled and multifaceted pairing of African and Asian bodies in various legal, cultural, political, and scientific discourses and how it maintained the racial exclusivity of American identity. At the same time, this pairing embodies the nation's general apprehension about the racialized body's relationship to American identity. This study also intends to capture how various racialized groups were influenced by each other in their struggles to negotiate the reality of the nation's exclusionary nature and in their imagining of political structures that might resolve that injustice.
Julia H. Lee
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814752555
- eISBN:
- 9780814752579
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814752555.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Why do black characters appear so frequently in Asian American literary works and Asian characters in African American literary works in the early twentieth century? This book attempts to answer this ...
More
Why do black characters appear so frequently in Asian American literary works and Asian characters in African American literary works in the early twentieth century? This book attempts to answer this question, arguing that scenes depicting Black-Asian interactions, relationships, and conflicts capture the constitution of African American and Asian American identities as each group struggled to negotiate the racially exclusionary nature of American identity. The book argues that the diversity and ambiguity that characterize these textual moments radically undermine the popular notion that the history of Afro-Asian relations can be reduced to a monolithic, media-friendly narrative, whether of cooperation or antagonism. Drawing on works by Charles Chesnutt, Wu Tingfang, Edith and Winnifred Eaton, Nella Larsen, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Younghill Kang, the book foregrounds how these reciprocal representations emerged from the nation's pervasive pairing of the figure of the “Negro” and the “Asiatic” in oppositional, overlapping, or analogous relationships within a wide variety of popular, scientific, legal, and cultural discourses. Historicizing these interracial encounters within a national and global context highlights how multiple racial groups shaped the narrative of race and national identity in the early twentieth century, as well as how early twentieth-century American literature emerged from that multiracial political context.Less
Why do black characters appear so frequently in Asian American literary works and Asian characters in African American literary works in the early twentieth century? This book attempts to answer this question, arguing that scenes depicting Black-Asian interactions, relationships, and conflicts capture the constitution of African American and Asian American identities as each group struggled to negotiate the racially exclusionary nature of American identity. The book argues that the diversity and ambiguity that characterize these textual moments radically undermine the popular notion that the history of Afro-Asian relations can be reduced to a monolithic, media-friendly narrative, whether of cooperation or antagonism. Drawing on works by Charles Chesnutt, Wu Tingfang, Edith and Winnifred Eaton, Nella Larsen, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Younghill Kang, the book foregrounds how these reciprocal representations emerged from the nation's pervasive pairing of the figure of the “Negro” and the “Asiatic” in oppositional, overlapping, or analogous relationships within a wide variety of popular, scientific, legal, and cultural discourses. Historicizing these interracial encounters within a national and global context highlights how multiple racial groups shaped the narrative of race and national identity in the early twentieth century, as well as how early twentieth-century American literature emerged from that multiracial political context.
