Hiroshima/Vietnam/Tule Lake

The origin of Asian American political identity was not in cultural nationalism but in diasporic consciousness, most notably in the concept of solidarity with Third World peoples struggling against imperialism around the globe. The poetry of Janice Mirikitani juxtaposes locations from Vietnam to Zimbabwe to the Tule Lake internment camp, making transnational political solidarity prior to, not dependent upon, racial identification. In contrast, the anthology Aiiieeeee!, often cited as the origin of Asian American literary politics, emphasizes the integrity of the individual writer over communal identification. Restoring Mirikitani’s place in the history of Asian American literature also restores a coalitional, transnational vision of Asian American politics that lays the groundwork for a contemporary poetics of the Asian diaspora.

Waiting for Asian Canada

While the scholarly narrative of Asian Canadian identity is often one of belatedness with regard to its American counterpart, the poetry of Fred Wah reveals a dynamic, diasporic context for Asian Canadian expression. While Wah’s poetry has often been read through its American avant-garde influences, his work from the mid-1980s onward focuses increasingly on biography under the influence of Asian Canadian activism. Wah’s book Waiting For Saskatchewan stitches together the techniques of American avant-garde poetry with Japanese poetic forms and the theme of diasporic return to China, creating a pan-ethnic, transnational aesthetic that is in conversation with Asian American models but distinct from its Canadian context.

The Multicultural Cringe

The category of the “Asian Australian” has emerged only in recent years, as the exclusionary “White Australia” policy gave way in the late-twentieth century to substantial waves of Asian immigration. Journals and anthologies from the mid-2000s onward have employed the idea of “Asian” identification with an eye on North American examples and shared history, but also with a discomfort with US-style “identity politics.” Ouyang Yu, among the first and best-known Asian Australian poets, is harshly critical of Australian multiculturalism, seeing it as a means of continuing to exclude non-white writers from Australian writing; remaining suspicious of any notion of belonging, his work instead presents itself as a kind of “invasion literature” that seeks to disrupt the English language.

Introduction

In the twenty-first century, Asian American studies has turned increasingly toward diasporic and transnational frameworks, even as some scholars have raised concerns about the loss of an Asian American identity and politics grounded in cultural nationalism. Drawing in part on the work of Paul Gilroy, I propose a new theory of “Asian diaspora” in which “Asian” identity emerges from a dialectic of national and transnational forces. Since the 1970s, this category of Asian identification has circulated among the United States, Canada, and Australia, white settler colonies with histories of Asian immigration and exclusion. The work of Asian poets in these locations registers, in content and form, the history of diaspora that gives rise to Asian identity.

Conclusion

The conclusion will propose that the Asian American, Asian Canadian, and Asian Australian writers discussed represent different modes of an Asian diasporic poetics; linked by a shared history of exclusion and racialization, their poems express formally the intersection of national and transnational forces that give a political meaning to “Asian” identity. A brief discussion of the Facebook group subtle asian traits illustrates the way diasporic Asian cultures are emerging online. The group, founded by young Asian Australians and now including over a million members from around the world, explores the images, tropes, and languages that can be used to express diasporic “Asianness,” while facing continual reminders of the political nature of what is often seen as a purely cultural identity.

Disclaiming America

Understanding the way the category of “Asian” writing circulates transnationally offers us a new framework for the study of Asian American writing that decenters the nation. In contrast to the cultural nationalist project of “claiming America,” the work of poets Myung Mi Kim and Cathy Park Hong “disclaims America,” establishing “Asian” spaces that refuse identification with the US while remaining implicated in, and critical of, American history and global power. Although Kim’s work at times thematizes Korean immigration to the US, it is equally engaged with the colonial history of Korea and with a broader critique of capitalism and militarism. Hong’s poetry inhabits a dystopian realm that resembles, but diverges from, the American landscape. Both evoke of diasporic identity that emerges from an understanding of global structures of power.