Aiieeeee! an introduction to Asian-American writing

Abstract

Asian-Americans are not one people but several, Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, and Filipino-Americans. Chinese and Japanese Americans have been separated by geography, culture, and history from China and Japan for seven and four generations respectively. They have evolved cultures and sensibilities distinctly not Chinese or Japanese and distinctly not white American. Even the Asian languages as they exist today in America have been adjusted and developed to express a new sensitivity created by a new experience. In America, Chinese and Japanese American culture and history have been inextricably linked by confusion, the popularization of their hatred for each other, and World War II.