Ethnic Studies Review
Orginal Publication Date
2001
Journal Title
Ethnic Studies Review
Volume
24
Issue
esr/vol24/iss1
First Page
1
Last Page
28
Abstract
Exploring Frank Chin's work, particularly in his latest novel Gunga Din Highway, the essay endeavors to re-situate ethnic writing in the historical specificity of its inscription in the United States as a racial polity. This cognitive remapping of the literary field as reconfigured by multiculturalist liberalism may be accomplished by examining Chin's cultural politics. Chin's mode of strategic writing interrogates the modelminority myth and the premises of cultural nationalism. While it rejects the pluralist resolution of the traditional conflicts in the Chinese diaspora, Chin's satiric impulse proposes a defamiliarization of Asian American "common sense" adequate to provoke a revaluation of the presumed conjunction of ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities in the current counter-terrorist milieu.
Rights
Copyright ©ESR, The National Association for Ethnic Studies, 2001
Comments
Analytical Traditions