641-674 0 Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley E-Mail: slwong@uclink4.berkeley.edu * * But What in the World Is an Asian American? Culture, Class and Invented Traditions in Gish Jen s Mona in the Promised Land Kathy Lo Marie Lo Robert Terrell Smith Gin Yong Pang Tina Chen Patricia and George Karlin-Neumann
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643 Gish Jen Mona in the Promised Land, 1996 Asian American 1 Callie Ralph Chang Helen 301 mock-epic style [ ] 3 (6; emphasis added Asian American Movement Orientalism 2 Typical American, 1991 1 Asian American 2 William Wei 1993: 282-283 [Bureau of the Census] [Social Security Administration]
644 pancake house Scarshill 3 Barbara Gugelstein Camp Gugelstein Seth Mandel 44 4 5 3 Shih-shan Henry Tsai stranded students 1986: 119-124 1997: 158, 172 4 [ ] 5 panethnicity Espiritu 1992
645 [ ] 301-302 248 6 7 6 in sickness or in health ; for better or for worse 304 7 Frank Chin, The Year of the Dragon Joy Kogawa, Obasan Fae Myenne Ng, Bone
646 8 9 10 8 Model Minority Ben-Sasson, 1976: 163-169; Seltzer, 1995: 112, 113 12 Takagi 1992: 50, 64, 134 middleman minority Min, 1995: 212 Blalock, 1967; Bonacich, 1973; Hamilton, 1978; Rinder, 1959; Zenner, 1991 Cho, 1993: 200; Omi & Winant, 1993: 107 9 Jade Snow Wong Pardee Lowe Maxine Hong Kingston 10 Wei, 1993: 24-25 Peter Kwong 1987: 124-173 California-centrism Okihiro & Lee [1992]; Sumida [1998]
647 11 29 48 49 11 Diaspora Holocaust 15 R. Smith 1996
648 41 129 234-235 12 Rabbi Horowitz 52 13 53) 12 Min 1995: 38-39 Takaki 1989: 474-484 13 Radhakrishnan diasporic self ethnic self minoritization 1996: 174-175
649 bagel 41-42 essentialist constructivist 14 WASP white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant 14
650 ethnicity race 15 1 Naomi 119 16 17 36 4 15 Omi & Winant 1994 9-50 San Juan 1992 16 57-58, 128-129 17 Sephardim Ashkenazim Ben-Sasson 1976 Falk 1995: 212
651 48 26 Alfred cousin Evie 18 207 mitzvah 19 170 20 239 18 cousin 19 Eichel 1993 20 Hune 1992 Kiang 1988 Lee & Okihiro 1992 Nakanishi & Leong 1978
652 cultural nationalism 21 Rhode Island 173 173 [129] 21
653 15 128-129 22 performed identity [ ] [ ] 129 23 130 22 performativity performance Butler 1990 Case 1990 Parker & Sedgwick 1995 Phelan 1993 Kondo 1997 J. Lee 1997 Moy 1993 speech act theory discursive production 23 Benedict Anderson, imagined community nation-state
654 170 49 48 49 49
655 122-123 3
656 a founding myth of the nation Mary Antin 24 32 25 novices at being minorities 36 36 24 Rudick 1996 Krupnick 1993 Kamel 1988 25 Malino 1978 Falk 1995: 226-228
657 26 43 49 inventedness Bea 27 269 26 Orthodox Raphael, 1984: 125-165 Conservative Raphael, 1984: 79-112 Reform Raphael, 1984: 1-55 Reconstructionist Raphael, 1984: 177-188 Seltzer & Cohen, 1995: 267-284 27 meritocracy Affirmative Action Seltzer & Cohen, 1995: 133-143 Elazar 1971
658 237 260 117 the banality of goodness 28 117 noblesse oblige 28 Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem the banality of evil
659 slumming lumpen 256 255 Fernando
660 222 119 [ ]
661 52 237 275 299 Northrop Frye Frye, 1969: 43 Professor Estimator, Ray, Big Benson Luther underclass pharmakos 29 29 hypergamy Shinagawa & Pang 1988
662 30 one-drop rule [ ] 137 mind our manners well-mannered manners manners 300-301 30
663 Moses 301 31 equal opportunity [Eloise] invisible minorities and visible minorities 31 Lowe 1986 Nichols 1978 S. Smith 1993 So 1996
664 lifestyle historically accurate politically correct 32 33 32 McAlister 1992 Wong, 1993 Dirlik 1990 culturalism 33 1997: 173 Sherman Matsumoto
665 137 Louis Althusser Althusser, 1986: 241 34 35 Tripmaster Monkey, 1989 [David Mura] 36 34 Shawn Hsu Wong Amy Tan Gus Lee 35 Leila Mission 36 Mura, 1991 1996 Mura Mura, 1991: 9
666 Aguilar-San Juan, 1994; Omi & Takagi, 1995 Bonacich, 1994; Kwong, 1995; Li, 1997; Omatsu, 1994 37 37 Colleen Fong and Judy Yung Fong & Yung, 1995: 83 Betty Lee Sung Sung, 1990: 36
667 38 Elaine H. Kim 39 40 38 Wong 2001 39 Kim, 1992: xiii Kim & Lowe 1997 40 Marlon K. Hom 1984
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674 But What in the World Is an Asian American? Culture, Class and Invented Traditions in Gish Jen s Mona in the Promised Land Sau-ling Cynthia Wong Abstract Through a reading of Gish Jen s 1996 novel, Mona in the Promised Land, this essay argues for the importance of considering socioeconomic class in reading representations of ethnicity in Asian American literature. Set in upstate New York in the late 1960s, Mona is typically read as a story about the fluidity of American ethnicity: the protagonist Mona Chang, the American-born daughter of immigrant restaurant owners, invents her ethnicity by converting to Judaism, the religion of her peers. Mona and her friends also befriend African-Americans and experiment with cross-race dating and communal living. I argue, however, that the family conflicts surrounding Mona s conversion are at heart about class. Her parents, originally from wealthy families in pre-1949 Shanghai, put pressure on their children to be high-achieving model minorities, or New Jews, in order to recover their lost class privileges. They reject people of color rhetoric because it would align them with lower-class blacks and Latinos. Mona s conversion to an activist variety of Reform Judaism represents an attempt to reconcile her idealistic desire for social change with her filial desire to improve her family s standing. As a comedy, Mona s story has a conservative happy ending in which multicultural social threats are contained and class structure closely intertwined with racial order is restored. Key Words: Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land, Asian American, ethnicity, class