Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity [Paperback]

David Mura (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 1997

In Turning Japanese, poet David Mura chronicled a year in Japan in which his sense of identity as a Japanese American was transformed. In Where the Body Meets Memory, Mura focuses on his experience growing up Japanese American in a country which interned both his parents during World War II, simply because of their race. Interweaving his own experience with that of his family and of other sansei-third generation Japanese Americans-Mura reveals how being a "model minority" has resulted in a loss of heritage and wholeness for generations of Japanese Americans.

In vivid and searingly honest prose, Mura goes on to suggest how the shame of internment affected his sense of sexuality, leading him to face troubling questions about desire and race: an interracial marriage, compulsive adultery, and an addiction to pornography which equates beauty with whiteness. Using his own experience as a measure of racial and sexual grief, Mura illustrates how the connections between race and desire are rarely discussed, how certain taboos continue to haunt this country's understanding of itself. Ultimately, Mura faces the most difficult legacy of miscegenation: raising children in a world which refuses to recognize and honor its racial diversity.

Intimate and lyrically stunning, Where the Body Meets Memory is a personal journey out of the self and into America's racial and sexual psyche.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

In Turning Japanese, poet David Mura chronicled a year in Japan in which his sense of identity as a Japanese American was transformed. In Where the Body Meets Memory, Mura focuses on his experience growing up Japanese American in a country which interned both his parents during World War II, simply because of their race. Interweaving his own experience with that of his family and of other sansei-third generation Japanese Americans-Mura reveals how being a "model minority" has resulted in a loss of heritage and wholeness for generations of Japanese Americans.

In vivid and searingly honest prose, Mura goes on to suggest how the shame of internment affected his sense of sexuality, leading him to face troubling questions about desire and race: an interracial marriage, compulsive adultery, and an addition to a pornography which equates beauty with whiteness. Using his own experience as a measure of racial and sexual grief, Mura illustrates how the connections between race and desire are rarely discussed, how certain taboos continue to haunt this country's understanding of itself. Ultimately, Mura faces the most difficult legacy of miscegenation: raising children in a world which refuses to recognize and honor its racial diversity.

Intimate and lyrically stunning, Where the Body Meets Memory is a personal journey out of the self and into America's racial and sexual psyche.

From the Inside Flap

In Turning Japanese, poet David Mura chronicled a year in Japan in which his sense of identity as a Japanese American was transformed. In Where the Body Meets Memory, Mura focuses on his experience growing up Japanese American in a country which interned both his parents during World War II, simply because of their race. Interweaving his own experience with that of his family and of other sansei-third generation Japanese Americans-Mura reveals how being a "model minority" has resulted in a loss of heritage and wholeness for generations of Japanese Americans.

In vivid and searingly honest prose, Mura goes on to suggest how the shame of internment affected his sense of sexuality, leading him to face troubling questions about desire and race: an interracial marriage, compulsive adultery, and an addiction to pornography which equates beauty with whiteness. Using his own experience as a measure of racial and sexual grief, Mura illustrates how the connections between race and desire are rarely discussed, how certain taboos continue to haunt this country's understanding of itself. Ultimately, Mura faces the most difficult legacy of miscegenation: raising children in a world which refuses to recognize and honor its racial diversity.

Intimate and lyrically stunning, Where the Body Meets Memory is a personal journey out of the self and into America's racial and sexual psyche.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (June 16, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038547184X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385471848
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #387,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mura makes an unflinching appraisal of many important issues, April 23, 2001

By 

Sam Chase (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity (Paperback)

David Mura's book, as the subtitle suggests, spans some fairly heavy issues. For more than a few readers in my Asian American Literature class, this book was a little too explicit, but for anyone in search of a frank and personal account of the sansei experience, this may be it. Mura discusses the problems he inherits through his inculcation of the model minority myth, and the mantra on which he was raised: "Act like everybody else and you will BE like everybody else." The book charts Mura's dawning consciousness of his racial identity, as well as his deep addiction to promiscuity and pornography--an addiction that Mura identifies as stemming from the standards of white beauty trained in him since boyhood. His discussion of what pornography does to the male psyche are particularly interesting, and his assessment of his addiction in terms of his racial identity is not one that I have heard anywhere else.

The book certainly met with criticism from those who would rather emphasize race unity for the fact that by the end, Mura seems to distill every aspect of his life and his identity into a race issue. However, it was equally applauded in my class for the same issues. The explicit nature of the book seemed as much a pro as a con in discussion as well. Whatever the case, this is book that sparked a great deal of controversy at my university, and generated a great deal of conversation. If you are interested in the Asian American experience, this is certainly worth the read. You will have opinions about this book, I can guarantee you that, and no matter what they are, you will find plenty of people willing to argue them with you.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for Asian American men, August 11, 2000

By 

Y. Kim (Wauwatosa, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity (Paperback)

I'm an American of Korean descent (2nd generation), born and raised in the Deep South. I bought this book two years ago, based on Mura's reputation and a sense that this book would speak to my emerging consciousness as an Asian American male. It sat on my shelf for 2 years until last week, and now I can see why. This is a painful read.

Other reviewers have branded this book as "self absorbed" and "tedious," which to me are the characteristics of the journey towards wholeness and healing. Read it if you are Asian or love someone who is.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All Asian-American men should read this book, February 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity (Paperback)

Sometimes I felt that this book did not have much relevance to me. Then Mura really foes into discussing the struggles of Asian-Americans today. Problems of fitting in, and sexual stereotypes. His description of the Asian male being this country's eunuch really hit home. He put words to very deep, very vague feelings that I have carried and that a lot of asians growing up in this society probably have as well.