2.0 out of 5 stars
A great premise....which then goes flat., October 3, 2002
This review is from: Deathly Embrace: Orientalism and Asian American Identity (Paperback)
Sometimes I wonder what's left for ethnic studies scholars to write about. I mean, once you know early Chinese American men weren't allowed to bring their wives over and that Asian immigration substantially increased after 1965, what's next? Once African Americans have studied slave narratives and the Harlem Renaissance, what's left? Though Professor Ma analyzes issues that many other Asian-Americans scholars have already done (Chan did Fu Manchu comics, Zia did the Vincent Chin murder, Bow did Joy Luck Club), she provides a fresh theory by which to look at Asian-American matters. Basically saying that it's hard to escape Said, Ma suggests that Asian-Americans are trapped in reproducing Orientalism, even as they try to escape it. Admittedly, Ma applauds herself noting that she covers topics from the 1920s to the present in multiple genres. Still, she makes this great thesis that Orientalism and Asian-American identity have a four-staged "deathly embrace." At first, I planned to just read selected chapters, but Ma's introduction and thesis enticed me to read the entire book from page one.
Unfortunately, the rest of the book somewhat disappoints. First, not all of the chapters deal with Asian-American agency. This group had no part in the manufacture of Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu. How can Vincent Chin, a hate crime casualty, be blamed for Orientalist narratives? The penultimate chapter discusses Ishiguro, an Anglo-Japanese, not an Asian American. Further, while Ma exhausts ideas about Orientalism, she says little about Asian-American identity. I thought for sure she'd rely upon Wei's book on student activism or Espiritu on panethnicity, but it didn't happen. She leaves several stones unturned. For instance, while she discusses African-American viewers' pleasure with Bruce Lee, when discussing the video game Mortal Kombat, she never mentions that many African-American players prefered to be the black character Jax (short for Jackson? specifically Jesse Jackson?). The book even ends with a defensive two-paged epilogue where Ma basically says, "I knew you weren't going to like this book?!"
Two things are abundantly clear here: Ma's generational status and her age. Ma knows Chinese fluently and immigrated here after years of living in China. African Americans and Afro-Brazilians often fantasize about Africa as just a place to dance and beat drums. Most Irish Americans can only imagine what Ireland was like before the famine in the 1840s. That's what ethnics in America do: have dreams about their homeland. Yet here, Ma consistently attacks Asian Americans whose multilingual skills and travel experiences are not as extensive as her own. At times, this book feels more like comparative literature than ethnic studies.
Like bell hooks' rants against Spike Lee, Ma has an axe to grind with Amy Tan. This attack has the trait I described above. It somewhat reminds me of Africanists who derided Eddie Murphy's portrayal of African royalty in "Coming to America." Again, this is due to Ma's 1.5 generational status. Though I haven't read Tan's children's story "Sagwa," I watch its cartoon everyday. Just as Black parents have embraced "The Lion King" and Latinos have embraced "Road to El Dorado," if I were an Asian-American parent, I would want my child to watch "Sagwa." Far from maligning China, the show consistently presents the country as full of tales and history and wonders.
Ma admits that she saw no problems with "Swiss Family Robinson" as a child outside of the US, yet she attacks Asian-American actors and viewers for embracing "Mulan." What kind of age bias is that?
Ma mentions biraciality often (Fu Manchu's daughter, Tan's characters, she even says Bruce Lee was 1/4 British). Still, she neither stands against miscegenation nor celebrates diversity here. Maybe it's because I'm also reading "Sum of Our Parts," but it struck me that Eurasians are just here, with nothing more said.
This was a slim text but it spoke profoundly. This was interesting, though confusing, cultural studies. This was quite a risky and ambitious text, but I'm not blown over by the result.
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