Asian American Literature and Reading Formations:

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Since the 1970s, literature by Asian American women writers has made a significant impact on the American literary canon. But despite these gains, this article argues that the reception of Asian American literature is limited not only by aesthetics and literary value, but by several factors specific to the perceived racial and national identity of its authors or characters. Through a reception study of two novels by Nora Okja Keller, Comfort Woman and Fox Girl, Layfield argues that a positive reception of Asian American women's literature depends on several key factors: first, readers want to experience the situation of Asian women; second, the story of this “other” needs to be told in a familiar structure associated with Asian American literature, such as the mother-daughter tale; and finally, this story needs to conform to successful immigration stories in which the heroine reaffirms the importance of the nuclear family and portrays immigration to the United States as a means of salvation.