Taiwan-asian-american

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES IN ASIATaipei, Taiwan Manju JaidkaJune 4-5, 2010 Professor of English

Panjab University, Chandigarh, IndiaEmail: [email protected]

ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES IN INDIA, CIRCA 20101

Before I begin my presentation I would like to clarify

my standpoint. As a teacher, academic and researcher

dabbling in the field for the last thirty-six years, I

can with some reason, claim to have theoretical as well

as practical experience of what Asian American Studies

involves. I have studied and also taught in Indian

institutions, headed an academic association with

international linkages, and traveled abroad extensively

on academic assignments. It is from this perspective

that I put forward my views.

With this preface, I’d like to interpret the term Asian

American Studies in more ways than one. Let me focus on

the twin aspects of the term: Asian + American. Note

that there is no prioritizing of the one over the

other. Or, in other words, the focus rests equally on

the two, Asian as well as American. When we add

“Studies” to Asian American, what does it mean? To my

mind it is possible to deconstruct the term “Asian1 This paper is not yet in its final form. Bear with me, please. MJ

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American Studies” in at least two ways: (i) the study

of Asians who are re-located in the United States (or

the Americas), and (ii) the Study of Americans by

Asians (located in Asia). Or, let me put it simply –

American Studies in which Asians are engaged. Both

perspectives are valid and both may be considered while

discussing the topic. There is a possible third

category too that may be considered and this would

refer to a discipline in the US that focuses on Asian

Studies. Under this third category I would place much

of the SASP programs of US universities. So, the term,

“Asian American Studies” is not as uncomplicated as it

may seem at first. However, there is no denying that

generally it is the first approach that is implied when

Asian American Studies is discussed. And yet, there is

no reason to consider the second or third approach as

any less valid than the first. I propose to focus on

the first two of these aspects of Asian American

Studies and briefly tough upon the third.

This is an International Workshop on Asian American

Studies in Asia. Asia, you will note, figures twice in2




the title. It is not a needless repetition but one with

a purpose: it serves to locate, to specify, to

particularize the academic discipline (if we may call

it that) which we are concerned with. It also points to

the fact that there is no single way of approaching a

subject, no uniformity of pattern, nothing final or

dogmatic about studying a particular field for academic

purposes. Asian American Studies can ‘happen’ in

locales other than Asia.

Several important issues that come into play. Although

the hyphen between Asian and American is missing, it is

evident that we are talking about hyphenated lives, bi-

cultural or even multi-cultural ways of living, the

need to bring together disparate experiences, as well

as questions of identity. We are dealing with issues

related to diaspora, with notions of home and

belonging, and with assimilation and acculturation into

a new culture following an uprooting and re-rooting in

geographical terms.

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When we talk about “Asian American”, we are not dealing

with a heterogeneous unit but with diverse segments of

population uprooted for various reasons – ranging from

free-willed choice to enforced eviction or exodus –

from approximately fifty different geographical,

political, and cultural units, some of which overlap

with Europe, while others fall into the Greater China

region where Chinese influence is predominant, or into

Greater India (with more of Indian influence). As the

historian D.G.E. Hall says, just the area comprising

South-East Asia may be “described as a chaos of races

and languages.” Add to this chaos the remaining area

and what one gets is an assorted variety of shades,

peoples and nation states. What these fifty-odd units

share in common in their re-located state in the U.S.

is their ‘inside/outside’ status, being part of their

new milieu but not fully integrated. These pockets

outside the mainstream are the Asian American; even

without the hyphen, they are the hyphenated people with

the plural identities that Salman Rushdie speaks of,

the double consciousness that DuBois attributed to4




black psyche. They are the ones who have given up one

home for another but continue to straddle both worlds.

Frank Chin: “Asian Americans are not one people but

several.” There are various reasons to explain their

relocation – some enforced, some as the result of free

choice, or the numerous cases of ‘paper sons’ sponsored

by foster parents, or the relocation of new brides

through marriages arranged in India.

Taking the issue from one perspective – i.e., the study

of Asians settled in America, let me briefly refer to

the historical backdrop. Why did Asian population move

to the US? What were the compulsions that made them

relocate? How did the host country receive them and

what were the challenges faced by the new settlers?

Among the various pressures that give impetus to an

exodus of population is the human need to seek greener

pastures. Colonization had its own impact on the

changing demographic pattern as indentured labor and

other working groups moved across international borders

in search of job opportunities. Economic compulsion,

thus, has been a major factor in the redistribution of5




population on the face of the globe. Better

opportunities, improved work conditions, job prospects,

all these factors have played a role in the changing

face of the earth.

Outside the US, when we speak of Asian Americans we

refer to those who have “made it” in the wild west, in

the big bad competitive world of America, those who

have survived the cultural shock, kept their heads

above the swirling waters and also recorded their

experiences in print. Doing so, they have inadvertently

taken on the role of representatives or spokespersons

of their community, a role that is often questioned by

the community itself. Narrowing the focus to the

‘Indian’ component of Asian American Studies, it needs

to be stressed that a scholar or traveler from India

does not (I repeat NOT) consider him/herself as South

Asian or Asian American. These two terms – South Asian

and Asian American – are labels of convenience adopted

by American institutions and they travel back to India

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to surprise scholars and academics (like me) who

discover they have been given a new identification.

Let me consider the question: "What happens when Asian

American literature leaves 'home'?" The notion of

“home” is further qualified as “one defined

geopolitically by the nation-state and the other

defined discursively as locus of cultural identity and

minority discourse.” Easily said, and we all agree

that the concept of ‘home’ is determined by national

and cultural identity. This is how it figures in

critical discourse or in the writings of practicing

theorists and critics. However, in practical terms what

does it mean? When we talk about the ‘home’ of Asian

American literature, where do we fix it? Without doubt,

home in this context would be that grey zone, that

third space between Asia and America, overlapping the

two spaces, no longer belonging wholly to their

original home or to the adopted home. If the country of

origin is Y and the adopted country is Z then let us

call the in-between third space Zone X. Within the7




walls of this Zone X the literature and culture that

exists is actually carry-over from Zone Y; it is a

deliberate effort to retain ties, to keep alive a way

of life that is threatened by the pressures of a

changed milieu. And yet, onslaughts of the new world

cannot be fully avoided, so Y in X adopts shades of Z

and becomes X+Y+Z which, in the present context is

Asian American Literature. Its home is the XYZ zone

and, now to repeat the question differently: “What

happens when XYZ literature leaves the XYZ Zone?” Or,

what happens when Asian American literature goes out of

its narrow confines of X, into the mainstream of Z, the

US, and then winds its way back to Y, to landscapes

left behind in time? Tracing the progress logically,

from X Zone it first must go into Z Zone to be accepted

as a viable entity. Invariably, then it travels back to

Y.

Substituting XYZ for ethnic groups which have now come

to be recognized and accepted, we may turn to look at

literatures from Afro-American, Native-American,8




Jewish, Chicana, or Asian communities located in the US

–‘minority’ literatures not taken heed of until as late

as the mid-’seventies. In this context, let me refer to

a particular incident in the early ’seventies. The

annual convention of the MLA in 1972 was held in a

hotel in New York City. The main sessions of the

Convention, all of them dealing with "White Male

American Literature," were accommodated within the

given space and time, but a session on Afro-American

Literature was scheduled for a day before the

Conference, in the corridor of the hotel. That was a

WASP-dominated era and apparently the organizers were

of the view that Afro-American literature was of an

inferior status and did not deserve a proper seminar

room or a regular slot in the main program. What

happened then? The outrage among a sizable section of

the participants who were doing minority literatures

was great. Reaction was bound to follow. Under the

leadership of Katherine Newman, the Society for the

Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United

States (MELUS) was established and the following year,9




in 1973, at the MLA convention in Chicago, a separate

MELUS panel was organized. Within the next one year,

the society enrolled a hundred members. That is how

MELUS began. That was the turning point in the study of

literatures in the US, when the hitherto marginalized

literatures could finally emerge from the wings and

move towards the centre. The American multi-ethnic

quilt, the melting pot, the salad bowl, all became

metaphors for this newly discovered reality that

comprised not just one race and color but myriad hues.

Around this time, Asian American Studies, as also Asian

American literature, became visible in the land

discovered by Christopher Columbus, painted white by

the early settlers.

Going back in time by about two decades, we see Asian

American Studies as the outcome of the US government’s

post-cold war policy of spreading goodwill through the

world, its establishment of American Centers and

libraries outside the US, and its vigorous educational

exchange programs through the Fulbright, Ford,10




Rockefeller, Watumull and other Foundations. If

American Studies began to flourish in locations outside

the US, there is no denying that Asian Studies Programs

and also SASP programs within the US took off in a big

way almost simultaneously. Asian American Studies in

the US comprised a largely ‘white’ perspective on non-

white or oriental systems of knowledge, traditions,

literature, art and culture when first given State

patronage, institutionalized and promoted. Much of this

attitude continues even today.

At this point I would like to briefly digress and refer

to Thomas L. Friedman who, in his celebrated book The

World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first

Century, recounts how Nandan Nilekani told him some

years ago that “the global economic playing field is

being leveled” – a statement that triggered off his

thoughts on the changes brought about by the new global

economy, making him realize that globalization has

“leveled competitive playing fields between industrial

and emerging market countries,” and “created a flat11




world: a global, web-enabled platform for multiple

forms of sharing knowledge and work, irrespective of

time, distance, geography and increasingly, language.”

This is how Friedman puts it. Among the ten

“flatteners” he lists the internet, the web, uploading,

outsourcing, insourcing, etc, all factors which have

produced the “dotcom boom” and the “wired world” of

today. In such a tightly connected world what is

important is the collective struggle for economic and

technological progress in which nations across the

world are engaged. The site of struggle thus undergoes

a change. Globalization, as Friedman tells us, has

“accidentally made Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda

next-door neighbors.” The Asian American is part of

this flat world and has the opportunity to play on the

level playing field of world economy. In the U.S. it

has seen the establishment of university departments

that focus on Asian Studies.

The main South Asian Studies centers in the US today

are: Columbia, Cornell, Syracuse, Penn, Virginia, North

Carolina Research Triangle (Duke, Univ. of NC, NC12




State), Chicago, Wisconsin, Texas, Berkeley and Univ.

of Washington (Seattle), Univ. of Michigan. These are

the centers that have historically received competitive

grant funding from the Federal Govt through the Dept of

Education. However, of late, with the rise of India in

global affairs, many more US universities and colleges

are adding faculty who specialize in the study of South

Asia, usually India. A focus on India at these

institutions practically obscures the study of the rest

of South Asian nations and cultures. The origin of

"South Asian Studies" in the US can actually be dated

to September, 1948, when the Dept. of South Asia

Regional Studies opened its doors to students at the

University of Pennsylvania. Professor W. Norman Brown,

a Sanskritist, who had been lobbying with everyone and

anyone he could for twenty years (beginning around

1929) on the importance of the study of 'India', who

had been appointed Sanskrit professor at U Penn in

1926, finally arranged for the creation of a dept. at

Penn using mostly outside funding from foundations.

Hindi/Urdu/Bengali classes were organized from 194313




onwards at Penn during the summer for the benefit of

soldiers who would be serving in South Asia (mostly at

Dum Dum Airport in Calcutta. A South Asia program was

organized at Berkeley in the early 1950s, and at

Chicago by the mid 50s. These details give evidence

that Asian (read Indian) Studies in the US began

simultaneously with American Studies in India, a point

to be taken up later in this essay.2

Before discussing Asian American Studies in India it is

imperative to first to speak of American Studies in

India because it is against this backdrop that Asian

American Studies has emerged and thrived in the

country. It was in the post cold war era that American

Studies began in India with the help of US State

agencies – the embassy, the Fulbright Foundation, etc.

– that facilitated the exchange of scholars between

India and America, funded advanced research and

seminars on American Studies projects, encouraged

universities to begin American Studies courses, and2 For this information on departments of South Asian Studies in US universities I am indebted to Prof Richard J. Cohen, Director, Asian Studies Programs, U of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.

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established the American Studies Research Centre in

Hyderabad which, as the home of the second largest

American Studies Library outside the US (the largest

being the JFK Library in Berlin), became the Mecca and

Medina of scholars working in the field. American

Studies also found its way into university curriculum

through a sprinkler effect, making its presence felt in

all disciplines. Although no separate departments were

set up, postgraduate departments of Literature,

History, Political Science, etc, introduced American

Studies as separate courses for study (generally

optional). However, research, conferences and seminars,

thanks to the funds available through the embassy, went

on full swing. American Studies entered the Indian

academia as an unignorable component and to date it is

there to stay. “Asian American Studies”, on the other

hand, does not figure as a formal nomenclature in

university syllabi although in the field of research it

is thriving. In fact it is a gold mine that is almost

depleted over the last decade and a half – so much of

research has been done in the field. However, the15




historical background is generally ignored – questions

like how did Indians from Asia first arrive in the US,

what were the immigration laws, the restrictions,

taboos and embargoes? These are not so much the focus

of study as the literary output of diasporic settlers,

the Asian American writers.

If I wish to zero in on a date of origin, then I would

risk placing a finger on 1997 when Salman Rushdie

brought out his controversial Vintage Anthology

Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian Writing 1947-1997 and kicked up a

furore among academics and critics in India. In this

collection of about thirty-three writers more than half

are names located in the western world, particularly in

North America. Some of the names were never heard of

before Rushdie picked them up and endorsed their acumen

as writers. As a reviewer put it, Rushdie exhibits

symptoms of Harold Bloom’s “anxiety of influence” and

picked out only names that (a) he was familiar with,

and (b) that he could identify with to some extent.

Thus were writers like Anjana Appachana, Chitra

Divakaruni, Padma Parera, Kiran Desai, Bapsi Sidhwa,16




Sara Suleri and others forced into our reckoning as

important Indian writers although they happened to be

located elsewhere on the globe.

Prior to Rushdie’s anthology, in the early ’eighties,

Meena Alexander’s name stand out; her standing as a

poet and teacher has given her a platform from which

she can make a mark, like Bharati Mukherjee earlier.

But Mukherjee chose to call herself “American” and

resisted the “Asian American” or even Indian tag. These

two names, along with others like Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra

Divakaruni, and Shauna Singh Baldwin, are the Asian

American writers who have become objects of impassioned

PhD and MPhil research in India. True, “Asian American”

includes Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Burmese, and other

countries, but in India there are few takers for these

subjects. Occasionally one comes across a scholar

working on Chinese American drama or Japanese American

cinema, but these cases are few and far between. It is

“Indian American” that is focused on but the “Indian”

includes other countries in the Indian subcontinent:

Bangladesh, Pakistan and Srilanka. Bapsi Sidhwa and17




Taslima Nasreen get clubbed with Jhumpa Lahiri and

Chitra Divakaruni. US scholars would see them all as

“South Asian”.

Bharati Mukherjee may not consider herself Indian but

we, scholars in India, treat her as one and take pride

in the recognition she has been accorded by the western

world. In fact the strong focus on Asian American

writing in India is an off-shoot of our nationalist

pride. In the postcolonial era, abandoning British

models of education and research, looking at ourselves,

rediscovering our own potential, worth and

achievements, realizing that our writers, like Salman

Rushdie, can match international standards, English

Studies and American Studies have logically been

followed by “Indian Studies” and in Literature

departments a focus on writers Indian as well as

diasporic. This explains the huge amount of attention

commanded by Asian American Writing in India today.

Asian American writing serves as an international

gateway for Indian writing, an entry point through

which our literatures may be placed on the world map.18




It is one way of sharing our literatures with

colleagues spread across the world. The nationalist

impulse is thus translated into the international and

becomes a means of exchange – of scholarship, of

knowledge, of expertise, and awareness.

Asian American Studies in India overlaps two

categories: Indian Studies and also American Studies.

It may be treated as a bridge-course between the two

disciplines, linking separate worlds under a single

label. Asian American Studies is hard to define because

it is a growing, evolving field, undergoing changes

constantly. One may quote Shakespeare and say “What’s

in a name?” Labels tend to become reductive but, at the

same time, there is no denying that a separate label

does open up new avenues, providing opportunities for

exploration. No matter what label we may choose to

give it, the study of Asians in America is useful for

many reasons but most of all because it keeps us in the

international loop. It is a conduit through which we

can make ourselves visible outside our given country.

It is also an opportunity for international exchange of19




scholarship. However, while studying Asian American

writing we need to keep in mind that much of it is

focused on the international market. These are writers

who produce their wares for the western audience (which

will buy their books and also pass judgment on them)

rather than the Asian. These are writers who may not be

the best but they have a platform; they have better

access to publicity and media; and they are not afraid

of using their ‘exotic’ card to ensure success. As they

straddle two worlds, they also make the best of the two

worlds, manipulating the former for their personal

ends, claiming to be spokespersons for cultures

distanced from their adopted lands, cultures they have

left behind. This aspect of Asian American writing

should not be forgotten in any discussion of the

subject.

A conference like this one is useful because it enables

us to inspect a particular body of work from various

angles without being dazzled by publicity hype. Ours

needs to be a common-sense approach marked by dignity

and not by slavish adulation. While examining Asian20




American writing let us assess it objectively and at

the same time use it as an opportunity for self-

exploration, for net-working and for international

fellowship and camaraderie. This is exactly what we try

to do through our organization MELOW (the Society for

the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World)

where Asian American Literature is an important segment

but it does not blind us to the fact that there are

many other literatures that deserve attention, that may

be fruitfully studied and used as tools to bring us

together, to make the world a more compact, do-able

space, bringing minds and people together. This is the

direction that Asian American Studies needs to take in

times to come – not as an isolated activity but as the

contribution of a set of peoples who are part of a

larger scheme of things, a world literature that it

must take into cognizance, a literary tradition that

crosses all borders and encompasses all peoples and

places.

Let us not be dazzled by Asian American writing but at

the same time, let us give these writers their due. Had21




they not ventured beyond the Lakshman Rekha, had they

not crossed the Black Seas and relocated themselves in

new worlds, there would be that gap in our awareness of

the world. Someone, sometime, has to take that first

step, as Salman Rushdie says. Because they take that

first step we can now place them under a microscope and

assess their importance. We can hold conferences like

this one that brings people together from different

parts of the world under a common roof, discussing a

topic of common interest. We need them, the Asian

Americans. We need them, ladies and gentlemen, as

mirror images, as doppelgangers, as our surrogate

others. Let us give them their due in this conference

on Asian American Studies in Asia.

Works cited and consulted:

Our Feet Walk the Sky: Women of the South Asian Diaspora by Women of South Asian Descent Collective. Aunt Lute Books. 2008.

Cheung, King-Kok and Stan Yogi. Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography (Paperback) Modern Language Association ofAmerica; Paper edition edition (August 1988).

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______. An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature. New York: University Press, 1997.

Chin, Frank, Shawn Wong, Jeffery Paul Chan, and Lawson F. Inada, eds. Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers. 1974.

DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. 1903

Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century,

Goek-Lim, Shirley, and Cheng Lok Chua. Tilting the Continent. Minneapolis: New Rivers Press, 2000.

Hall, D.E.G. A History of South-East Asia. 1955. London: Macmillan. 1981

Jaidka, Manju. “American Studies in India: A Retrospect,” in Comparative American Studies: An International Journal. 2004. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) Vol 2 (4):483-491.

Mandal, Somdatta. The Diasporic Imagination: Asian-American Writing. (3 volumes) Editor. New Delhi: Prestige Books. 2000.

Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands.

Rushdie, Salman. Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian Writing 1947-1997

Rushdie, Salman. Step Across This Line.

Skerrett, Joseph T. “Katharine Newman and the making of MELUS” (Remembering and Reminiscing Katharine D. Newman) MELUS| September 22, 2004 | http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=L18p9wMdQQT1gG0b7Qz24TWLvYkjWCnTPqD471GMjVzYMfjv0YJ8!-1340094148!1748356985?docId=5008600952

Yu-wen Shen Wu, Jean and Min Song. Asian American Studies: A Reader. 2001

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http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=L18p9wMdQQT1gG0b7Qz24TWLvYkjWCnTPqD471GMjVzYMfjv0YJ8!-1340094148!1748356985?docId=5008600952





Yu-wen Shen Wu, Jean, and Thomas C. Chen. Asian American Studies Now: ACritical Reader by (Paperback - Mar. 1, 2010)

Zia, Helen. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People (Paperback - May 15, 2001)

MELUS-MELOW website: www.melusmelow.org

MELUS (US) website http://webspace.ship.edu/kmlong/melus/

Links provided by UPenn: http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/asianamerican/

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http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/asianamerican/

http://webspace.ship.edu/kmlong/melus/

http://www.melusmelow.org/

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