Synopses & Reviews
The sheer diversity of the Asian American populace makes them an ambiguous racial category. Indeed, the 2010 U.S. Census lists twenty-four Asian-ethnic groups, lumping together under one heading people with dramatically different historical backgrounds and cultures. In Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture, Jennifer Ann Ho shines a light on the hybrid and indeterminate aspects of race, revealing ambiguity to be paramount to a more nuanced understanding both of race and of what it means to be Asian American. Exploring a variety of subjects and cultural artifacts, Ho reveals how Asian American subjects evince a deep racial ambiguity that unmoors the concept of race from any fixed or finite understanding. For example, the book examines the racial ambiguity of Japanese American nisei Yoshiko Nakamura deLeon, who during World War II underwent an abrupt transition from being an enemy alien to an assimilating American, via the Mixed Marriage Policy of 1942. It looks at the blogs of Korean, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese Americans who were adopted as children by white American families and have conflicted feelings about their “honorary white” status. And it discusses Tiger Woods, the most famous mixed-race Asian American, whose description of himself as “Cablinasian”—reflecting his background as Black, Asian, Caucasian, and Native American—perfectly captures the ambiguity of racial classifications. Race is an abstraction that we treat as concrete, a construct that reflects only our desires, fears, and anxieties. Jennifer Ho demonstrates in Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture that seeing race as ambiguous puts us one step closer to a potential antidote to racism.
Review
andquot;Li's provocative and thoughtful close readings both compliment and contribute to one's understanding of how fiction depicts talking b(l)ack. Elegantly scripted and beautifully argued, this fresh effort illustrates the interplay between the fiction of race and racial fiction.andquot;
Review
"With nuanced, original readings and fluid prose,
Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture exceeds other studies of multiracialism by presenting a lucid, yet complex meditation on category confusion and epistemological uncertainty and their political stakes for Asian Americans."
Review
"With a nuanced approach and original analysis, Racial Ambiguity brings comparative ethnic studies and critical race studies into necessary dialogue. Ho skillfully maps the contours of U.S. racial formation by investigating mixed subjectivity and its particular resonances to Asian America."
Synopsis
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama faced a difficult taskandmdash;rallying African American voters while resisting his opponentsandrsquo; attempts to frame him as andldquo;too blackandrdquo; to govern the nation as a whole. Obamaandrsquo;s solution was to employ what Toni Morrison calls andldquo;race-specific, race-free language,andrdquo; avoiding open discussions of racial issues while using terms and references that carried a specific cultural resonance for African American voters.
Stephanie Li argues that American politicians and writers are using a new kind of language to speak about race. Challenging the notion that we have moved into a andldquo;post-racialandrdquo; era, she suggests that we are in an uneasy moment where American public discourse demands that race be seen, but not heard. Analyzing contemporary political speech with nuanced readings of works by such authors as Toni Morrison, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Colson Whitehead, Li investigates how Americans of color have negotiated these tensions, inventing new ways to signal racial affiliations without violating taboos against open discussions of race.
Synopsis
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama faced a difficult task--rallying African American voters while resisting his opponents' attempts to frame him as "too black" to govern the nation as a whole. Obama's solution was to employ what Toni Morrison calls "race-specific, race-free language," avoiding open discussions of racial issues while using terms and references that carried a specific cultural resonance for African American voters.
Stephanie Li argues that American politicians and writers are using a new kind of language to speak about race. Challenging the notion that we have moved into a "post-racial" era, she suggests that we are in an uneasy moment where American public discourse demands that race be seen, but not heard. Analyzing contemporary political speech with nuanced readings of works by such authors as Toni Morrison, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Colson Whitehead, Li investigates how Americans of color have negotiated these tensions, inventing new ways to signal racial affiliations without violating taboos against open discussions of race.
Synopsis
In Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture, Jennifer Ann Ho shines a light on the hybrid and indeterminate aspects of race, revealing ambiguity to be paramount to a more nuanced understanding both of race and of what it means to be Asian American. Ho argues that seeing race as ambiguous puts us one step closer to a potential antidote to racism.
About the Author
JENNIFER ANN HO is an associate professor in the English and comparative literature department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels.
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Violence and Toni Morrison's Racist House
2. Hiding the Invisble Hurt of Race
3. The Unspeakable Language of Race and Fantasy in the Stories of Jhumpa Lahiri
4. Performing Intimacy: andquot;Race-Specific, Race-Free Languageandquot; in Political Discourse
Conclusion: The Demands of Precious
Notes
Bibliography
Index