A Study of Paradigms and Theoretical Key Words of Asian American Literary Criticism was published by China Social Sciences Press in April 2020. The author is Pu Ruoxi, who is a professor of the College of Foreign Studies, Jinan University. Lady Pu has been engaged in the study of Asian American literature for many years. On the basis of summarizing the history of Asian American literary criticism since the late 1960s, Pu creates a new book, A Study of Paradigms and Theoretical Key Words of Asian American Literary Criticism. On the one hand, it shows the general picture of the emergence and development of Asian American literary criticism in the past forty years; on the other hand, it shows that scholars from all over the world are seeking and building the critical paradigm and theoretical proposition with their own characteristics. This book tries to explore the theoretical system and poetic construction of Asian American literature.The book consists of three parts: introduction, main body, and conclusion. The introduction briefly summarizes the significance of the research on the key words, and the themes and characteristics of the book. The introduction also reviews the development of Asian American literary criticism and divides it into three stages: exploration, formation, and expansion. The introduction summarizes the importance of Asian American literature and puts forward that “the vigorous development of Asian American literature since the 1960s has completely changed the American literature and literary criticism norms” (Pu, 6). The main body consists of six chapters. The first chapter discusses the critical paradigm of ethnic identity in Asian American literature. It returns to the historical scene, and studies the focus, connotation, and essence of the debate on Asian American ethnic identity in the 1970s. This chapter focuses on the emergence and development of “Asian American sensibility,” and analyzes the representative texts of Asian American literature since the 1990s. This chapter also analyzes the interracial, constructive, and heterogeneous characteristics of Asian American ethnic identity, and reveals the positive and negative effects of Asian American ethnic identity criticism on the development of Asian American ethnic groups. The second chapter focuses on the paradigm of cultural identity criticism of Asian American literature. This chapter analyzes the significance and limitations of “cultural nationalism” for Asian American literary criticism, and reveals the deep reasons behind which ethnic writers consistently build multicultural identity. The chapter points out that the “hybridity” of the cultural identity of Asian Americans is a double-edged sword, which not only easily leads to racial prejudice, but also shows the characteristics of Asian American culture. Asian Americans persist in pursuing “hybridity” of cultural identity, in order to highlight the “intermediary” immigrant subjects, showing mixed ethnic culture, which is a strategy adopted by Asian Americans to integrate into American society (97). The third chapter summarizes the cultural trend of modern Western anti-traditional subjectivity and the influence of postmodern subjectivity theory on Asian American literary criticism. This chapter points out that whether gender identity play, ethnic identity play, or gender performativity in the “Persona” theory, they all reflect a certain form of “The Other” identity politics. It can be seen that “identity play” is a kind of mask politics of “The Other”; “Identity play” provides a new window to analyze the living conditions of Asian Americans. “The Other” of Asian Americans takes the role of mask as the cover. On the one hand, they fight against the harsh living environment and unfair politics, on the other hand, they try their best to show the subjective initiative. The fourth chapter focuses on the trauma suffered by Asian American subjects and its representation in Asian American literature. This chapter proposes the key words “racial castration,” “racial shadow,” and “racial depression,” then traces the origin of psychological theory and carries on the literary analysis of them combined with specific texts. By analyzing these key words, it reveals the unique experience and feelings of Asian Americans in American society. In this chapter, the author first interprets the image of Asian Americans who have been “castrated” in the mainstream Western literature, and emphasizes that this literary phenomenon is caused by historical, political, economic, and ethnic factors. Through the way of the “Otherization,” Chinese Americans are excluded to the edge of society, so as to ensure that white people get the opportunities in employment (136). Then, this chapter analyzes the psychological trauma “ethnic castration” imposes on Asian American males, which is considered to be one of the important themes of Asian American literature. For example, the Chinese males in Eat a Bowl of Tea by Louis Chu, in Chinamen by Maxine Hong Kingston and in Bone by Fae Myenne Ng are all suffering from “castration,” reflecting the identity crisis of Asian American males. Finally, this chapter discusses the “racial depression” in Asian American literature. The so-called racial depression roots from the disillusionment of the endeavor of Asian Americans assimilating into mainstream society. They are always in a “suspended state,” which causes mental distress and depression. This chapter quotes excerpts from Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone to illustrate that the protagonists are split personality and psychopathology, reflecting the health problems of Asian Americans who are struggling to survive under the shadow of racism. The fifth chapter examines the paradigm of feminist criticism in Asian American literature. This chapter discusses women’s “Silence” in Asian American literary creation and criticism, and points out the harm of “Silence” to Asian American groups. Based on this reason, Asian American writers and critics are committed to breaking the silence and making their own Asian voices. This chapter mentions the key word “sexual capital,” which is one of the strategies for Asian American women to naturalize in the United States. Different from “economic capital” and “cultural capital,” “sexual capital” is to use “sex” to occupy social resources. It relies not on individual efforts, but on the attachment of white men and the use of “marriage” mode to obtain American citizenship. This chapter cites excerpts from the novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, an Indian-born American writer, to imply that Asian American women enter American society in the form of marriage or “sex goods.” It is believed that “sex goods” magnifies the status of Asian American women attached to men, and strengthens the stereotyped image of Asian American women, highlighting the dual vulnerable status of Asian American women (212). The sixth chapter discusses the relationship between Asian American literary criticism and diasporic poetics. This chapter looks into the cultural diaspora in the context of contemporary globalization, and points out that diaspora criticism has evolved from the past passive criticism of “The Other” into the present active and differentiated cultural criticism and comparative study. This makes the study of Asian American literature gradually move from an ethnic political criticism to a diaspora-oriented comparative poetics. This chapter first interprets the characteristics of contemporary diaspora criticism. The author believes that diaspora criticism is ubiquitous, penetrating into many fields, and highly inclusive and cross-disciplinary. In recent decades, the research on diaspora has become more detailed. Indian scholar Vijay Mishra even divides the Indian diaspora into classic capitalist diaspora and late capitalist diaspora (220, 222). The diaspora criticism has become a poetic paradigm with the great immigration in the second half of the twentieth century. Then, the chapter focuses on the diasporic characteristics of Asian American literature. Asian American literature has the characteristics of heterogeneity, hybridity, and multiplicity. This characteristic is reflected not only in the uncertain cultural identity of Asian American ethnic groups, but also in the hybridity of Asian American literature, which is different from other types of works in terms of race, class, language, and culture. Finally, this chapter discusses the development and influence of diaspora in the practice of Asian American literary criticism. This chapter cites Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Immigration and Diaspora, Lowe Lisa’s Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Asian American Differences, and Sheng-mei Ma’s The Subjectivity of Immigrants in Asian American Literature and Asian American Diaspora Literature to demonstrate the development of diaspora studies in Asian American literature. This kind of development path is from “claiming that America is my home” to “forging the connection between Asia and America,” from “reshaping Asian American masculinity” to “focusing on ethnic diversity,” from “shouldering historical and social responsibility” to “falling into the confusion of postmodernism.”The last part is the conclusion. It says that throughout the development of Asian American studies in the past forty years, it is not difficult to find that its literary criticism paradigm has undergone a series of changes, and the core issues and theoretical hot spots have been in a dynamic state. There are five changes: (1) from ethnic antagonism to multiracial coexistence, (2) from static and closed concept of race to dynamic and extended one, (3) from the study of the Asian American community as a victim to the study of the differentiated power subjects and their relationships in American society, (4) from the study of Asian American homogeneity to the comparative study of Pan-ethnicity and heterogeneity, and (5) the study of Asian ethnic groups within the United States has become a part of the global diasporic study (248).With the change of research paradigm, the key words of Asian American literary criticism are also enriched and expanded. This book condenses a set of theoretical key words with its own characteristics, and initially forms a theoretical system of Asian American literary criticism. This book has the following characteristics:To sum up, the current academic research on Asian American literature has not paid attention to Asian American literary criticism as a whole. The publication of this book is an important supplement to the text research of Asian American literature and a major breakthrough in the research of critical theory.This article is one of the periodical fruits of the Major Project of Science Research Foundation of Renmin University of China: A Comparative Study of Postmodern Literary Ethics (22XNL017).