Writing the Ghetto

Price (paper): $24.95  
Price (cloth): $45.00  
Subtitle: Class, Authorship, and the Asian American Enclave
Author: Yoonmee Chang
Subject: Literary Studies, American Studies, Asian American Studies, Criminology, Family and Childhood Studies
Paper ISBN: 978-0-8135-5175-3
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4801-2
Pages: 208 pages
Publication Date: December 2011 (First Paperback Edition)
Series: American Literatures Initiative

Praise for Writing the Ghetto:

"Chang's excellent book makes a compelling case for why Asian American critics need to use the 'ghetto' as a paradigm and marshals ample evidence to show the ways Asian American literature supports such a provocative claim."
—Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics
in Asian America

"Yoonmee Chang's elegantly written, deftly argued, and meticulously developed Writing the Ghetto makes a valuable contribution to our understanding and appreciation of Asian American social history and literature. This is an
important book."
—Elaine H. Kim, University of California, Berkeley

Description:

In the United States, perhaps no minority group is considered as 'model' or successful as the Asian American community, which is often described as residing in positive-sounding "ethnic enclaves." Yoonmee Chang's Writing the Ghetto helps clarify the hidden or unspoken class inequalities faced by Asian Americans, while insightfully analyzing the effect such notions have had on their literary voices. Chang discusses texts from the late nineteenth century to the present that cover a range of contexts: the Chinese Exclusion Era, Japanese American internment during World War II, the globalization of Chinatown in the late twentieth century, the Vietnam War, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the contemporary emergence of the "ethnoburb."

YOONMEE CHANG is an assistant professor of English and cultural studies at
George Mason University.

Receive special offers and book notices by email. Sign up for RU READING?
Price (paper): $24.95
Price (cloth): $45.00