Geisha of a Different Kind: Race and Sexuality in Gaysian America

Abstract

CWinter Han examines negotiations of identity and practices of belonging among gay Asian American men in a book titled Geisha of a Different ’.Kind: Race and Sexuality in Gaysian America. Han critiques the idea that the ideological and historical effects of Orientalism—subordinating, domesticating, and differentiating Asian people, cultures, and traditions—are the core of (re)producing discursive and material conditions of men who identify with gay and Asian in US America. Han also pays attention to the particular and nuanced complexity of gay Asian American men navigating multiple cultural spaces, including mainstream US America, LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) America, and Asian America. I believe that Han makes important contributions to the interdisciplinary developments of Asian queer studies as he explicates the racialized, gendered, sexualized, and classed knowledge embedded in the material realities of gay Asian American men. Simultaneously, there yet remain multiple intellectual holes that require additional investigations. Therefore, I share my careful review of this book next.