14 - Inventing Identity: The Manifestos of Pioneering Asian American Literature Anthologies

Summary

This chapter focuses on important early Asian American literary anthologies, those that had a significant impact on the field in general and in shaping Asian American cultural identities in particular. Aiiieeeee! is the most well-known early anthology of Asian American writing. The important development in Asian American literary anthologizing was work by feminist editors with the express goal of recovering, discovering, and promoting writing by a broad range of Asian American women. The most significant and widely available of feminist anthologies includes The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology. Despite the intersectional approach through race and gender of these anthologies, which might seem to narrow the conception of identity they advocate, they in fact take a more expansive approach to Asian American identity than their earlier, male-dominated counterparts. The editors seem more interested in attempting to represent diverse identities of Asian American women.