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A spirited collection of essays, personal testimonies, fiction, and art on what it means to be queer in Asian-America now
Q & A
Queer in Asian America
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edited by David L. Eng and Alice Y. Hom
Book Award from The Association for Asian American Studies, 2001
Honorable Mention for Outstanding Books Awards, Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America, 1999
Lambda Literary Award for Best Book in Lesbian and Gay Anthologies/Non-Fiction, 1998
"Astute, provocative, and exemplary, Q & A: Queer in Asian America sets a bold and serious agenda for engaging race, desire, culture, and globalization today."
—Lisa Lowe, author of Immigrant Acts: On Asian-American Cultural Politics
What does it mean to be queer and Asian-American at the turn of the century? The writers, activists, essayists, and artists who contribute to this volume consider how Asian-American racial identity and queer sexuality interconnect in mutually shaping and complicating ways. Their collective aim (in the words of the editors) is "to articulate a new conception of Asian-American racial identity, its heterogeneity, hybridity, and multiplicity-concepts that have after all underpinned the Asian-American moniker from its very inception.
Q & A approaches matters of identity from a variety of points of view and academic disciplines in order to explore the multiple crossings of race and ethnicity with sexuality and gender. Drawing together the work of visual artists, fiction writers, community organizers, scholars, and participants in roundtable discussions, the collection gathers an array of voices and experiences that represent the emerging communities of a queer Asian-America. Collectively, these contributors contend that Asian-American studies needs to be more attentive to issues of sexuality and that queer studies needs to be more attentive to other aspects of difference, especially race and ethnicity. Vigorously rejecting the notion that a symmetrical relationship between race and homosexuality would weaken lesbian/gay and queer movements, the editors refuse to "believe that a desirably queer world is one in which we remain perpetual aliens-queer houseguests-in a queer nation.
Excerpt
Read an excerpt from Chapter 1 (pdf).
Reviews
"The writers, artists, and activists in Q & A take us to so many fascinating places where 'queer' and 'Asian American' cross paths, that we end up seeing all of American history from a new angle of vision. This brilliant, provocative collection makes clear the kind of intelligence we lose whenever it's assumed that history is heterosexual and that 'queer' equals 'white.'"
—Alan Bérubé, author of Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two
"This is a spectacular set of essays that compel an important and creative shifting of perspective within every page. What is 'queer' and what is 'Asian American' turn out to be vitally defined by one another. Timely, brave, necessary, and incisive, this book should change every field that it touches."
—Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley
"A breakthrough gathering of voices, astounding in their individual clarity and their collective diversity... Q & A presents a compelling challenge to those who cling to the notion that race and sexual orientation can be considered separate identities, rather than interwoven, interdependent aspects of one's singular social/political self."
—Jeff Yang, publisher and founder of A. Magazine: Inside Asian America
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Q & A: Notes on a Queer Asian America – David L. Eng and Alice Y. Hom
Part I: Working Out
1. Going Home: Enacting Justice in Queer Asian America – Karin Aguilar-San Juan
2. The Heat Is On Miss Saigon Coalition: Organizing Across Race and Sexuality – Yoko Yoshikawa
3. Queer Asian American Immigrants: Opening Borders and Closets – Ignatius Bau
4. Coalition Politics: (Re) turning the Century – Vera Miao
Part II: Im/Proper Images
5. Creating, Curating, and Consuming Queer Asian American Cinema: An Interview with Marie K. Morohoshi – Ju Hui Judy Han with Marie K. Morohoshi
6. "A Vaudeville Against Coconut Trees": Colonialism, Contradiction, and Coming Out in Michael Magneye's White Christmas – Victor Bascara
7. Looking for My Penis: The Eroticized Asian in Gay Video Porn – Richard Fung
8. Lisa's Closet – Gaye Chan
Part III: Keeping Records
9. Sexuality, Identity, and the Uses of History – Nayan Shah
10. history of disease – Patti Duncan
11. Queer API Men in Los Angeles: A Roundtable on History and Political Organizing – Introduced and edited by Eric C. Wat and Steven Shum
12. Toward a Queer Korean American Diasporic History – Jeeyeun Lee
Part IV: Closets/Margins
13. Litany – Russell Leong
14. Trying fo' Do Anykine to Donna: Fragments of a Prose Work – Donna Tsuyuko Tanigawa
15. Transgender/Transsexual Roundtable – Transcribed by Diep Khac Tran, Edited by Diep Khac Tran, Bryan, and Rhode
16. Mahu: The Gender Imbalance – Jennifer Tseng
17. Curry Queens and Other Spices – Sandip Roy
Part V: Paternity
18. in his arms – Joël Barraquiel Tan
19. The Strange Love of Frank Chin – Daniel Y. Kim
20. The Unknowable and Sui Sin Far: The Epistemological Limits of "Oriental" Sexuality – Min Song
21. Webs of Betrayal, Webs of Blessings – You-Leng Leroy Lim
22. Heterosexuality in the Face of Whiteness: Divided Belief in M. Butterfly – David L. Eng
Part VI: Out Here and Over There
23. Monster – Justin Chin
24. Coming Out into the Global System: Postmodem Patriarchies and Transnational Sexualities in The Wedding Banquet – Mark Chiang
25. Incidents of Travel – Ju Hui Judy Han
26. Transnational Sexualities: South Asian (Trans)nation(alism)s and Queer Diasporas – Jasbir K. Puar
Selected Bibliography: Anthologies, Fiction, and Nonfiction – Compiled by Alice Y. Hom
Resource Guide – Compiled by Alice Y. Hom
About the Contributors
About the Author(s)
 | David L. Eng is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University. |
 | Alice Y. Hom is a doctoral candidate in history at Claremont Graduate University. |
Contributors: Karin Aguilar-San Juan, Victor Bascara, Ignatius Bau, Bryan, Gaye Chan, Mark Chiang, Justin Chin, Ken Chu, Dan Cuevas, Patti Duncan, Richard Fung, Dean Goishi, Ju Hui Judy Han, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Daniel Y. Kim, Jeffrey Deungkyu Kim, Karen Kimura, I. H. Kuniyuki, Erica Lee, JeeYeun Lee, Quentin Lee, Russell Leong, You-Leng Leroy Lim, Gil Mangaoang, Vera Miao, Marie K. Morohoshi, Hanh Thi Pham, Phong, Jasbir K. Puar, Rhode, Sandip Roy, Nayan Shah, Steven Shum, Min Song, Joël Barraquiel Tan, Donna Tsuyuko Tanigawa, Diep Khac Tran, Jennifer Tseng, Eric C. Wat, Yoko Yoshikawa, and the editors.
Subject Categories
Sexual Identity
Asian American Studies
Gender Studies
In the series
Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ.
The "standard" written histories of Asian immigrants to the United States have been imbued with Western cultural biases. As a critique and corrective to earlier work, Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ, aims to develop a history of Asian Americans that is compatible with their own experience, that treats Asian Americans as agents of historical change and as creators of a new culture. In addition, this series intends to focus on the groups that are flourishing in the contemporary U.S.—Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese—about whom little has been written as well as to add to the substantial work done on the Chinese and Japanese in this country.