Representations: Doing Asian American Rhetoric »

Asian American rhetorics, produced through cultural contact between Asian traditions and US English, also comprise a dynamic influence on the cultural conditions and practices within which they move. Though always interesting to linguists and "contact language" scholars, in an increasingly globalized era, these subjects are of interest to scholars in a widening range of disciplines—especially those in rhetoric and writing studies.

Mao, Young, and their contributors propose that Asian American discourse should be seen as a spacious form, one that deliberately and selectively incorporates Asian “foreign-ness” into the English of Asian Americans. These authors offer the concept of a dynamic “togetherness-in-difference” as a way to theorize the contact and mutual influence. Chapters here explore a rich diversity of histories, theories, literary texts, and rhetorical practices. Collectively, they move the scholarly discussion toward a more nuanced, better balanced, critically informed representation of the forms of Asian American rhetorics and the cultural work that they do.

Foreword Min-Zhan Lu Bruce Horner vii

Acknowledgments xiv

Introduction: Performing Asian American Rhetoric into the American Imaginary 1

Performing Asian American Rhetoric in Context

1 Transnational Asian American Rhetoric as a Diasporic Practice Rory Ong 25

2 Reexamining the Between-Worlds Trope in Cross-Cultural Composition Studies Tomo Hattori Stuart Ching 41

3 Asian American Rhetorical Memory and a "Memory That Is Only Sometimes Our Own" Haivan V. Hoang 62

4 Listening for Legacies; or, How I Began to Hear Dorothy Laigo Cordova, the Pinay behind the Podium Known as FANHS Terese Guinsatao Monberg 83

5 Learning Authenticity: Pedagogies of Hindu Nationalism in North America Subhasree Chakravarty 106

6 Relocating Authority: Coauthor(iz)ing a Japanese American Ethos of Resistance under Mass Incarceration Mira Chieko Shimabukuro 127

7 Rhetoric of the Asian American Self: Influences of Region and Social Class on Autobiographical Writing Robyn Tasaka 153

"Translating" and "Transforming" Asian American Identities

8 "Artful Bigotry and Kitsch": A Study of Stereotype, Mimicry, and Satire in Asian American T-Shirt Rhetoric Vincent N. Pham Kent A. Ono 175

9 Beyond "Asian American" and Back: Coalitional Rhetoric in Print and New Media Jolivette Mecenas 198

10 On the Road with P. T. Barnum's Traveling Chinese Museum: Rhetorics of Public Reception and Self-Resistance in the Emergence of Literature by Chinese American Women Mary Louise Buley-Meissner 218

11 Rereading Sui Sin Far: A Rhetoric of Defiance Bo Wang 244

12 Margaret Cho, Jake Shimabukuro, and Rhetorics in a Minor Key Jeffrey Carroll 266

13 "Maybe I Could Play a Hooker inSomething!" Asian American Identity, Gender, and Comedy in the Rhetoric of Margaret Cho Michaela D. E. Meyer 279

14 Learning Asian American Affect K. Hyoejin Yoon 293

Afterword: Toward a Theory of Asian American Rhetoric: What Is to Be Done? 323

Index 333

Contributors 338