Date of Award
12-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
First Advisor
Christopher Kocela
Second Advisor
Pearl McHaney
Third Advisor
Nicoleta Alexoae-Zagni
Abstract
This dissertation applies the concept of passing as narrated in African American literature to selected Asian American texts. The idea of passing in African American literature, perhaps best illustrated through Nella Larsen’s Passing, suggests a racial conversion experience through choice from one identity to another. In her introduction to Passing and the Fictions of Identity, titled “The Politics of Passing,” Elaine K. Ginsberg suggests racial passing as “[the] creation of a new ‘white’ identity” which indicates “a transgression not only of legal boundaries … but of cultural boundaries as well” (1; emphasis added). This idea of a newly formed identity that crosses over cultural boundaries in the African American experience is similar to that of the Asian American experience. In most Asian American immigrant literature, second generation characters process a similar kind of transformation between identities, yet not through racial factors, but rather through cultural means. Although recent scholarly studies on the intersection of Afro-Asian confluences have slowly started developing during the last two decades, there still exists a need for scholarship on the theme of identity formation—in terms of race, ethnicity, and culture—within these confluences. My dissertation will argue for an idea of cultural “passing” in Asian American literature. Through close readings of selected novels by Asian American authors of different ethnicities, including Lan Cao, John Okada, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gene Luen Yang, Gish Jen, and Eddie Huang, I will explore how several different modes of identity formation—folklore, family, language, religion, and food—shape the experience of an Asian American “passing.” The goal of this dissertation will be to answer one important question in order to better understand the forming of Asian American identity: what are the results of an Asian American “passing”?
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/38130427
Recommended Citation
Lee, I-Hsien, "Denying the Hyphen: Issues of Identity Passing in Asian American Literature." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2024.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/38130427
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