Original scientific paper
“Histories That All of Us Should Know”: Asian American Masculinities in Interethnic Perspective
Jelena Šesnić
orcid.org/0000-0002-4276-3490
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
US ethnic studies, specifically their Asian American section, have been marked
by a sustained interest in the questions of the models of Americanization through
adopting dominant masculine roles, usually presumed “white”. The reading of two
recent novels from the Asian American canon, namely, Gus Lee’s China Boy (1991)
and Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker (1995) suggests, however, that we pay attention
to the ways some alternative models of homosocial relations (a term borrowed from
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) work to counteract the idea of dominant white masculinity,
and draw the male protagonists in the novels closer to an interethnic model of
identity building usually involving an important African American figure. In the
process this also signifies the changes and redefinitions in American social formations
which have to do with ethnicity, race, immigration and citizenship status in
different phases of the post-Civil Rights period.
Keywords
Asian American; masculinity; interethnic; Gus Lee; Changrae Lee
Hrčak ID:
23112
URI
Publication date:
17.4.2008.
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