Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Culture (Asian American History & Culture) [Hardcover]

Amy Ling (Compiler, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1999 | Series: Asian American History & Culture

Yellow Light -- a groundbreaking collection in which Amy Ling brings together the thoughts and creative projects of forty world-renowned and newly emerging Asian American artists -- is the first book to present the words behind the words, images, and sounds of Asian American cultural production. Coming from the broad spectrum of ethnicities that make up Asian America, these artists not only provide a provocative cultural record and an indispensable anthology of creative expression, but also offer a rare glimpse of the inspirations and aspirations behind their art. Along with artists' candid discussions of their work through personal essays, interviews, and short biographies, Yellow Light also gathers in one volume a stunning array of fiction, poetry, drama, and music. Included are novelists C.Y. Lee and Maxine Hong Kingston; playwright David Henry Hwang; filmmaker Christine Choy; actor Garrett Richard Wang; and hip hop and rap artists Tou Ger Xiong and Jamez Chang. Follow the development of Asian American art through three generations and see how these individuals view their relationship to the Asian American rubric -- and to American life -- as they provide remarkable insight into the contradictions, influences, imagination, and humanity expressed through their vastly different creative projects.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ling devised a set of questions on the Asian American experience and posed it to Asian writers, artists, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, and performance artists. Thirty-eight replied and found their way into this compilation, which is divided into two parts: one for writers and one for the rest. Ling (English, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) interviewed many of them, including Maxine Hong Kingston, David Henry Hwang, C.Y. Lee, Ping Chong, Christine Choy, and many emerging unknowns. These writers often refer to other Asians, such as Margaret Cho, Amy Tan, and Frank Chin, who are not interviewed. Because it is limited to Ling's questionnaire respondents, this compilation is uneven and somewhat odd in its inclusions and exclusions. Nevertheless, many of the interviews are interesting, and the excerpts from the authors' works are excellent. For larger public libraries.AKitty Dean Chen, Nassau Community Coll., Garden City, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Is there a distinctive Asian American creative sensibility?

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566396700
• ISBN-13: 978-1566396707
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #20 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Asian American
  • #80 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Modern

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Effort But Not A Place To End, July 29, 2005

By 

Bryan Thao Worra (St. Paul, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Culture (Asian American History & Culture) (Hardcover)

Yellow Light is an important collection of interviews with different members of the Asian Pacific artists community who are still with us today.

Covering a wide swath of disciplines and styles, and catching people at different stages of their careers, it's an enormously intriguing insight into the diverse opinions which exist within our community and how we each set our priorities.

Is it a perfect text? Perhaps not. All books will have their detractors. But for Asian American writers and artists, this is a wonderful, often candid snapshot of where we're at, but hopefully not necessarily where we're staying.

Despite the uniformity of the interview questions, which some may see as an advantage or a disadvantage to the text, in most cases, the personalities of the subjects really do come to life within their words. We should be grateful to Ms. Ling for going through so much hard work and crossing so many cultural lines to bring this picture of Asian America to the world.

Having met some of the people interviewed in the book, some of their opinions have changed or remodulated since the original interviews it seems. People would do well to remember that and try and seek out other recent interviews and works by these artists after you've read this particular text.

Should you agree with all of their opinions? Of course not. But this book lets them say their piece and take key steps to articulating a greater Asian American consciousness that most of us don't hear within the mainstream today.

Or in a nutshell: I discovered several good writers within this book, and a few of the excerpted stories continue to linger with me long after I'd placed it back on my shelf.

If you're thinking of buying it, I can think of far worse things to buy.

2 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Arts, January 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Culture (Asian American History & Culture) (Hardcover)

This is the kind of pseudo-pc nonsense people grasp at while trying to "publish or perish." Talking on both sides of the issue -- pay more attention to Asian artists, but don't consider us as Asian, or as a group. Anger and ambivalence, "flavor of the month", whining that mainstream culture is insensitive and "nude pantyhose are three shades too light," this book collects a hypocritical melange of opinion and personal experience with little redeeming value.