Synopses & Reviews
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 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!
Table of Contents
IntroductionCome All Ye Asian American Writers of the Real and the Fake, by Frank Chin
An English-Chinese Phrase Book, by Wong Sam and Assistants
Three Short Stories by Sui Sin Far: Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian; The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese; Her Chinese Husband
Poems from Songs of Gold Mountain, translated by Marlon K. Hom: Immigration Blues; Lamentations of Stranded Sojourners
from Homebase, a novel by Shawn Wong
A Farmer's Life, from Hawaii: End of the Rainbow, a novel by Kazuo Miyamoto
And the Soul Shall Dance, Act One of a play by Wakako Yamauchi
The Seventh Street Philosopher, a short story by Toshio Mori
from Nisei Daughter, a memoir by Monica Sone
from All I Asking For Is My Body, a novel by Milton Murayama
from Horizon Is Calling, an autobiographic picture book by Taro Yashima
The Shoyu Kid, a short story by Lonny Kaneko
Laughter and False Teeth, a play by Hiroshi Kashiwagi
The Legend of Miss Sasagawara, a short story by Hisaye Yamamoto
Poetic Reflections of the Tule Lake Internment Camp 1944, haiku by Violet Kazue Matsuda de Cristoforo
The University of California Japanese Evacuation and Resettlement Study: A Prolegomenon, by Peter T. Suzuki
from Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps, by Michi Weglyn
Good Law vs. Good Publicity, by Minoru Yasui
Two Short Stories: Relocation by Larry Tajiri; Nurse by Masaharu Hane
from Obasan, a novel by Joy Kogawa
from No-No Boy, a novel by John Okada
from Eat a Bowl of Tea, a novel by Louis Chu
The Only Real Day, a short story by Frank Chin
Cheap Labor, a story by Jeffery Paul Chan
In a World Small Enough, a short story by David Wong Louie
Four Poems by Wing Tek Lum: Grateful Here; Going Home; The Poet Imagines His Grandfather's Thoughts on the Day He Died; To My Father
Five Poems by Lawson Fusao Inada: The Stand; The Discovery of Tradition; Concentration Constellation; Ainu Blues; On Being Asian American