Rethinking the Hyphen: Asian North American and European Ethnic Texts as Global Narratives

Abstract

Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the development of Asian American Studies as a discipline and the Asian American movement as a panethnic coali­tion in the US (Espiritu 10), it has become common to refer to non-white writers in America, more recently in Canada and in Europe, as African American, Asian Canadian, or black British writers. This hyphenated status has been seen as a marker of one’s belonging to two worlds, of one’s hybrid identity, and also criti­cized as a sign of non-belonging to the mainstream culture (see J. Ling; Bhabha 112; Miki).1 The best-known essay on the topic of Asian American identity is Lisa Lowe’s “Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity”which celebrates the heteroge­nous character of Asian America.