This interdisciplinary study examines the theme of consumption in Asian American literature, connection representations of cooking and eating with ethnic identity formation. Using four discrete modes of identification--historic pride, consumerism, mourning, and fusion--Jennifer Ho examines how Asian American adolescents challenge and revise their cultural legacies and experiment with alternative ethnic affiliations through their relationships to food.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Asian Americans and the Shifting Politics of Race examines the political and discursive struggles around the dismantling of race-based admissions policies in an elite public high school in San Francisco. The book analyzes the arguments put forth by plaintiffs in and the media's depiction of the case, Brian Ho, Patrick Wong, & Hilary Chen v. SFUSD. The Ho lawsuit, filed by a group of Chinese Americans, challenged race-based admissions policies that were intended to ensure diversity by giving special consideration to African-American and Latino students. Robles argues that the Ho plaintiffs exploited the dominant racial construction of Asian Americans as model minorities to portray themselves as victims of discrimination, and relied on contrasting constructions of Black and Latino students as undeserving and unqualified beneficiaries of affirmative action. The decision in favor of the plaintiffs effectively ended school desegregation, racial balance, and affirmative action in San Francisco. In order to examine the consequences of the Ho decision on student attitudes, Robles spent four years studying and observing the first cohort of students to enter the high school after race was eliminated from admissions considerations.

There's a strong interest in reading for pleasure or self-improvement in America, as shown by the popularity of Harry Potter, and book clubs, including Oprah Winfrey's. Although recent government reports show a decline in recreational reading, the same reports show a strong correlation between interest in reading and academic acheivement. This set provides a snapshot of the current state of popular American literature, including various types and genres. The volume presents alphabetically arranged entries on more than 70 diverse literary categories, such as cyberpunk, fantasy literature, flash fiction, GLBTQ literature, graphic novels, manga and anime, and zines. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and provides a definition of the genre, an overview of its history, a look at trends and themes, a discussion of how the literary form engages contemporary issues, a review of the genre's reception, a discussion of authors and works, and suggestions for further reading. Sidebars provide fascinating details, and the set closes with a selected, general bibliography. Reading in America for pleasure and knowledge continues to be popular, even while other media compete for attention. While students continue to read many of the standard classics, new genres have emerged. These have captured the attention of general readers and are also playing a critical role in the language arts classroom. This book maps the state of popular literature and reading in America today, including the growth of new genres, such as cyberpunk, zines, flash fiction, GLBTQ literature, and other topics. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and provides a definition of the genre, an overview of its history, a look at trends and themes, a discussion of how the literary form engages contemporary issues, a review of the genre's critical reception, a discussion of authors and works, and suggestions for further reading. Sidebars provide fascinating details, and the set closes with a selected, general bibliography. Students will find this book a valuable guide to what they're reading today and will appreciate its illumination of popular culture and contemporary social issues.

Balancing key foundational topics with new developments and trends, Engagements with Narrative offers an accessible introduction to narratology. As new narrative forms and media emerge, the study of narrative and the ways people communicate through imagination, empathy, and storytelling is especially relevant for students of literature today. Janine Utell presents the foundational texts, key concepts, and big ideas that form narrative theory and practical criticism, engaging readers in the study of stories by telling the story of a field and its development. Distinct features designed to initiate dialogue and debate include: Coverage of philosophical and historical contexts surrounding the study of narrative An introduction to essential thinkers along with the tools to both use and interrogate their work A survey of the most up-to-date currents, including mind theory and postmodern ethics, to stimulate conversations about how we read fiction, life writing, film, and digital media from a variety of perspectives. A selection of narrative texts, chosen to demonstrate critical practice and spark further reading and research "Engagement" sections to encourage students to engage with narrative theory and practice through interviews with scholars This guide teaches the key concepts of narrative—time, space, character, perspective, setting—while facilitating conversations among different approaches and media, and opening paths to new inquiry. Engagements with Narrative is ideal for readers needing an introduction to the field, as well as for those seeking insight into both its historical developments and new directions.

Drawing on critical frameworks, this study establishes the centrality of language, gender, and community in the quest for identity in contemporary American fiction. Close readings of novels by Alice Walker, Ernest Gaines, Ann Beattie, John Updike, Chang-rae Lee, and Rudolfo Anaya, among others, show how individuals find their American identities.

Examines the ways our conceptions of Asian American food have been shaped Chop suey. Sushi. Curry. Adobo. Kimchi. The deep associations Asians in the United States have with food have become ingrained in the American popular imagination. So much so that contentious notions of ethnic authenticity and authority are marked by and argued around images and ideas of food. Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader collects burgeoning new scholarship in Asian American Studies that centers the study of foodways and culinary practices in our understanding of the racialized underpinnings of Asian Americanness. It does so by bringing together twenty scholars from across the disciplinary spectrum to inaugurate a new turn in food studies: the refusal to yield to a superficial multiculturalism that naively celebrates difference and reconciliation through the pleasures of food and eating. By focusing on multi-sited struggles across various spaces and times, the contributors to this anthology bring into focus the potent forces of class, racial, ethnic, sexual and gender inequalities that pervade and persist in the production of Asian American culinary and alimentary practices, ideas, and images. This is the first collection to consider the fraught itineraries of Asian American immigrant histories and how they are inscribed in the production and dissemination of ideas about Asian American foodways.

This Companion rethinks food in literature from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to contemporary food blogs, and recovers cookbooks as literary texts.

This book examines U.S. multiculturalism from the perspective of Asian American writings, drawing contrasts between politically acquiescent multiculturalism and politically conscious multiculturalism. Chae discusses the works of writers who have highlighted a critical awareness of Asian Americans’ social and economic status and their position as 'unassimilable aliens', 'yellow perils', 'coolies', 'modern-day high tech coolies', or as a 'model minority', which were ideologically woven through the complex interactions of capital and labor in the U.S. cultural and labor history. Chae suggests that more productive means of analysis must be brought to the understanding of Asian American writings, many of which have been attempting to raise awareness of the politicizing effects of U.S. multiculturalism.

Winner of the Children’s Literature Association’s 2020 Edited Book Award Contributions by Hena Ahmad, Linda Pierce Allen, Mary J. Henderson Couzelis, Sarah Park Dahlen, Lan Dong, Tomo Hattori, Jennifer Ho, Ymitri Mathison, Leah Milne, Joy Takako Taylor, and Traise Yamamoto Often referred to as the model minority, Asian American children and adolescents feel pressured to perform academically and be disinterested in sports, with the exception of martial arts. Boys are often stereotyped as physically unattractive nerds and girls as petite and beautiful. Many Americans remain unaware of the diversity of ethnicities and races the term Asian American comprises, with Asian American adolescents proving to be more invisible than adults. As a result, Asian American adolescents are continually searching for their identity and own place in American society. For these kids, being or considered to be American becomes a challenge in itself as they assert their Asian and American identities; claim their own ethnic identity, be they immigrant or American-born; and negotiate their ethnic communities. The contributors to Growing Up Asian American in Young Adult Fiction focus on moving beyond stereotypes to examine how Asian American children and adolescents define their unique identities. Chapters focus on primary texts from many ethnicities, such as Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Vietnamese, South Asian, and Hawaiian. Individual chapters, crossing cultural, linguistic, and racial boundaries, negotiate the complex terrain of Asian American children’s and teenagers’ identities. Chapters cover such topics as internalized racism and self-loathing; hypersexualization of Asian American females in graphic novels; interracial friendships; transnational adoptions and birth searches; food as a means of assimilation and resistance; commodity racism and the tourist gaze; the hostile and alienating environment generated by the War on Terror; and many other topics.