Assiut University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English

Asian American Ethnicity in American Drama: A Study of Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die (1987), and

Elizabeth Wong’s Kimchee and Chitlins (1990)

An M.A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English,

Faculty of Arts, Assiut University

By

Mai Fathy Muhammad El-Sagheer

Under Supervision of Dr. Ahmed Saber Mahmoud Mohammed,

Associate Professor of English Literature, Faculty of Arts

Assiut University

Dr. Wafaa Abdel Aziz Morsy, Lecturer in English Literature,

Faculty of Arts Assiut University

2011

In Loving Memory of My Grandfather,

Saad El-Galaly

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Allah, the merciful and the compassionate, for providing me the

opportunity to step in the amazing world of theatre. To be able to step strong and

smooth in this way, I have also been supported and supervised by many people to

whom I would like to express my deepest gratitude.

I owe my deepest gratitude to Dr. Ahmed S. M. Mohammed, Associate

Professor of English Literature, Faculty of Arts, for his continuous encouragement,

patience and understanding and for giving me an opportunity to study under his

kind supervision.

I am heartily thankful to Mr. Philip Kan Gotanda for his time and his great

help to complete this work.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my family and my best friends

Nora Ibrahim, Jehan Anwar and Yun Sungwoo for their help and support.

Table of Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………………i

Introduction .................................................................................................. 1

Chapter I: Asian American Drama: History and Significance ...... 4

Chapter II: Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die .............. 36

Chapter III: Elizabeth Wong’s Kimchee and Chitlins ..................... 68

Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 94

End Notes ..................................................................................................... 130

Works Cited ................................................................................................. 132

Abstract

This thesis explored Asian American ethnicity in Asian American drama

from the end of the nineteenth century until the present time. The choice of the

plays was confined to Philip Kan Gotanda's Yankee Dawg You Die (1987) and

Elizabeth Wong's Kimchee and Chitlins (1990). The introduction showed the main

parts of the whole thesis. Chapter one was dedicated to some important Asian

American playwrights and theatre companies that contributed to identifying and

grabbing the attention of the mainstream American audiences and critics. Also of

importance are the political events that had their effects on Asian American theatre

like the civil rights movements and the American wars in Asian countries.

Likewise, the introduction had shed light on the lives of Asian Americans and how

they transformed from being a national threat to an ideal minority. Chapter two

was dedicated to Philip Kan Gotanda’s play Yankee Dawg You Die (1987). The

play discussed the challenges that two Asian American actors from different

generations faced while working in the American entertainment industry and being

shattered between their dreams of stardom and their responsibilities towards their

original roots. Chapter three discussed Elizabeth Wong’s Kimchee and Chitlins

(1990). In this play, Wong explored the social relationships and cultural

misunderstanding that resulted in the 1990 boycott of Korean greengrocers by

black communities in Brooklyn, New York. The thesis finally provided a

conclusion where the main ideas and notions about Asian American ethnicity in

the plays are conveyed. The conclusion offered the main reasons that made Asian

American dramatists fail in conveying the true identity of their ethnic group and

some solutions for their social and literary problems.

1

Introduction

Due to its significance and being worthy of critical attention, Asian

American ethnicity in Asian American drama from the end of the nineteenth

century until the present time has been explored in this thesis. The plays discussed

in this thesis are not chosen because of their commercial success, although they

were mostly welcomed by the mainstream audiences and critics, but because of

their ability to make readers raise questions about the importance of ethnic

identities marked as Asian American and their success in making readers share

common feelings with the protagonists of the plays even if they do not belong to

the same ethnic group.

The introduction has shown the main parts of the whole thesis. Chapter one

has been dedicated to some important Asian American playwrights and theatre

companies that contribute to identifying and grabbing the attention of the

mainstream American audiences and critics. Also of importance are the political

events that had their effects on Asian American theatre like the civil rights

movements and the American wars in Asian countries. Likewise, chapter one has

shed light on the lives of Asian Americans and how they have been transformed

from being a national threat to an ideal minority. Chapter two has been dedicated

to Philip Kan Gotanda’s play Yankee Dawg You Die (1987). The play discusses the

challenges that two Asian American actors from different generations have faced

2

while working in the American entertainment industry and being shattered between

their dreams of stardom and their responsibilities towards their culture. Chapter

three has been discussing Elizabeth Wong’s Kimchee and Chitlins (1990). This

play has predicted the Los Angeles riots that took place in 1992 between African

Americans and Korean Americans and extend to include all Asian Americans. It

has shown how media misuse could affect the public badly by making irritation

among ethnic groups, and how cultural misunderstandings and ignorance have

helped intensify conflicts among them. The two plays have explored how Asian

American playwrights regard entertainment and news media and their role in

forming Asian American image in the eyes of the American audience.

The thesis has finally provided a conclusion where the main ideas and

notions about Asian American ethnicity in the plays are conveyed. Further, it has

offered a vision of the true identity of Asian Americans from the viewpoint of

Asian American dramatists rather than the stereotyped image drawn by the U.S

media. By and large, the thesis has shown to what extent Asian American

dramatists were successful in conveying the reality about their identity, and how

far they have changed the image already visualized in the eyes of non-Asian

Americans. The conclusion has also highlighted some important Asian American

issues discussed in two important Asian American plays; Frank Chin’s

Chickeencoop Chinaman (1972) who is the first Asian American playwright to

3

have his works produced legally in New York in American Place Theatre and

David Henry Hwang’s masterpiece “M. Butterfly”. According to Murphy:

“Hwang’s play was one of the few in the 1980s to originate on Broadway, and,

winning a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize as well as being a major commercial

success….” (427).

4

Chapter I:

Asian American Drama: History and Significance

Asian American Literature has existed “since the first people of Asian

descent began to arrive in the United States as immigrants in the 1830s, [yet their

works did not attract any] scholarly or critical attention until the 1970s” (Amend

7). The average reader “was probably not familiar” with so-called “Asian

American Literature” as it was thought by the general public that this genre of

writing is “premature” (What Do I Read, Hong 411). Until recently this body of

writing has been ignored by most critics who believed that “it lacks aesthetic value.

Linguistic and cultural barriers have also hindered the recognition of Asian

American literature” (Ghyum 1). Elaine Kim believes that one of the problems

facing Asian American and other racial minority writers in America has been that

many readers insist on viewing their writings “as sociological or anthropological

statements about the group” (Preface xv). This may be the reason why critics

usually ignore the artistic values and the literary contributions of these works.

However, with the rise of “multicultural or ethnic studies”, the field of Asian

American writing and criticism has expanded (Amend 7). The pursuit of Asian

American studies arose as a part of “social and political challenge to the oppression

and marginalization that Asians faced in the United States and around the world,

5

especially during American wars in the Southeast Asia” (Yu, Preface viii).

Regarding the diversity of their style, Asian American literary productions are rich

and researchable, Wenying Xu notes that:

Asian American literature is as diverse in style as any other literature.

Unlike some literary traditions, it is impossible for this literature to

trace its influence to a few major figures since its aesthetics and

sensibilities come from multiple sources…. Living between worlds

offers them unique resources for the fusion of literary horizons,

voices, and strategies to produce a vibrant body of literature that

mesmerizes the reader with its unpredictable movements. (437)

Since the majority of early Asian Americans were of Chinese and Japanese

descent, Asian American literature was initially dominated by Chinese American

and Japanese American voices (What Do I Read, Hong 413). Like most writers of

color, Asian American writers did not attract much attention because mainstream

American audiences believed that those who are inspired by their “experiences as

members of a minority are often seen as speaking for their ethnic groups” (Cheung

2). This belief was reinforced by the fact that the initial works of Asian American

literature were autobiographies and memoirs because Asian American writers were

trying to document and share their unique experience.

6

Asian immigration history in America “spans more than 200 years” (Danico

and Ng, Introduction xiii), however, we find that terms like Asian American and

Asian American theatre appeared only in the late 1960s, when the famous Japanese

American historian Yuji Ichioka coined the term Asian American in a meeting in

Berkeley in 1968, as he rejected the term oriental because of its “negative

connotations and associated stereotypes” (Kawahara 92). The classification of the

"oriental and the pseudo-scientific Mongolian race" did not differentiate between

Asians living in the United States and those in Asia (Esther Lee, Asian American

Theatre 7). Esther Lee adds that this racial category includes “Americans whose

families have come from Asia and also those from the Pacific Islands. So, it is

common to use the terms Asian Pacific Americans or Asian Pacific/Islander

Americans to refer to individuals whose family origins are from Asia and the

Pacific Islands” (Links and Locations 7). According to Kondo, this identity:

is always in process. In the 1960s “Asian American” reflected the

general demographics of the Asian diaspora in the United States.

Since the earliest waves of Asian immigration primarily comprised

workers from China and Japan, with lesser numbers from the

Philippines, Korea and India, so the definition of “Asian American”

seemed largely East Asian in origin. (ix)

7

The writings of Asian Americans date back to the latest years of the

nineteenth century. Nevertheless, “after World War II and around the middle of the

twentieth century”, Asian American writers experienced “a notable rise” and began

to introduce their own identity (Guiyou Huang, Greenwood xvii). Inspired by the

civil rights movements of the 1960s and the women’s liberation movements in the

1970s, Asian American literature produced works that have eventually caught the

attention of the mainstream critics who realized that “there is a new kind of

American literary writing called Asian American” (Guiyou Huang, Greenwood

xvii).

In her study “Asian American Literature: An Introduction to Writings and

Their Social Contexts”, Elaine Kim defines Asian American literature as the

“published creative writings in English by Americans of Chinese, Japanese,

Korean, and Filipino descent” (xi). However, this definition is incomprehensive as

writers from Korea like Susan Kim and Sung Rno Lee, Laos like Brenda Clough

and Bryan Thao Worra, and Vietnam like Qui Nguyen have added marked

contributions to the body of Asian American Literature with their writings and

experiences. Zeng points out that this expansion is in response to the “development

of Asian American communities as a result of the influx of immigrants from those

countries in the past three decades or so” (67). Asian Americans are not

8

homogenous; however, according to Elaine Kim their literary works like other

minority literature, share some thematic concerns

such as love, desire for personal freedom and acceptance, and

struggles against oppression and injustice, it is also shaped by other

important particulars. American racism has been a critical factor in the

Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino experience in the United

States: it is no accident that literature by writers from those groups is

often much concerned with this shared heritage. (Introduction xii-xiii)

As the bulk of Asian American writings has been increasing, there has been an

urgent need to give a clear definition of Asian American literature. Asian Americans

used literature to express themselves, introduce their own culture and identity and

search for a space on the American literary map. They did not seek

“marginalization” or “isolation” of Asian American literature, but they rather argued

that “Asian American literature was also part of American literature….” (Danico and

Ng, Asian American Literature 66). With the increased body of Asian American

literature, research extends historically backwards as scholars begin to “uncover and

recuperate neglected texts” that include

writings in Asian languages, numerous accounts by Asian visitors to the

United States, autobiographies by privileged and educated first- generation

Asian Americans, work songs by Chinese immigrant laborers, poems by

9

Angel Island detainees, and the writings of Japanese Americans published

during their internment in the 1940s. (Lim and Ling 3)

Theoretically, the term Asian American includes Americans whose ancestry is

from any of the countries in Asia continent. But in practice, when Asian American

studies began after the Third World Student Strike at San Francisco State

University in 1969, the focus was on Americans of East Asian descent (Ling 34).

Asian Americans may be native or foreign born. While the latter refers to persons

who immigrated to the united states after the end of the World War II, the former

refers to persons who may be a second, third, or fourth- generation descendants of

Asian immigrants (Hyung-Chan Kim xiii). The term Asian American includes

members of at least “forty distinct ethnic groups on the basis of their common

ethnic origins in Asia and the Pacific Islands and also the similarities of their

physical appearance” (Kawahara 92). In this concern, Takanishi believes that the

use of terms “Asian” and “Asian Americans” as a research category is “outdated,

unhelpful and misleading” because of relative differences among these various

ethnic groups (qtd. in Kawahara 92). The term Asian American refers to those

immigrants and their descendants who immigrated from China, India, Japan,

Korea, Pakistan, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam or The Philippines (Hyung-Chan Kim

xiii). The migration of each Asian group differed on the grounds of the “political

and economic landscapes” of the United States and of the Asian countries from

10

which they came (Liu C. et al 3). For example, Deterioration of economic

conditions in China caused by “the increasing population and decreasing food

production and flooding of the Yangtze River” caused many Chinese men to

immigrate to the United States because news of the Gold Rush in California and

the need for laborers reached them (Pettey 23). Takanishi believes that these

differences also include “cultural practices and customs, language, religion, values,

history, immigration and relocation experiences, family structure and intactness,

educational levels, socioeconomic status, and other factors” (qtd. in Kawahara 92).

Since the beginning of their immigration, the American government used to

regard Asian workers in two ways as a “racial problem” and as a “racial solution”.

Yu explains that their migration was considered as “a threat to white labor and

American society. Categorized as Orientals, those immigrants were demonized as

exotic and non-American. However, since the 1960s they were classified as a

model minority solution to racial and economic ills” (Introduction 12).

According to Gudykunst, “Filipinos were the first Asians to arrive in the

United States, but the initial numbers were very small (71). However, “the first

large-scale immigration of Asians into the U.S. didn’t happen until 1848, when

gold was discovered in California” (Le, The History 16). Hyung-Chan Kim points

out that the first group who came to America in large numbers was from “the

Chinese province of Guangdong, located in southeastern China. Many came with

11

the hopes of striking it rich and going home to live out the rest of their lives in

comfort” (xiii). The number of immigrants was so great that the American

government eventually “passed laws barring the foreign workers from citizenship

or even from taking up residence” (Amend 7-8). Chinese immigrants faced many

discriminatory laws which forced them to leave their jobs. In 1882, the United

States passed legislation excluding most Chinese immigration. When the U.S.

Congress prevented Chinese laborers from immigration to America in 1882,

Japanese laborers were brought in large numbers between 1895 and 1905 to work

in sugar plantations in Hawaii and vegetable and fruit farms in California.

However, Japanese workers went on strike asking for better living conditions

(Hyung-Chan Kim xiv). They were forced to do work that native born laborers

refused to do at “lesser wage” (Herrick & Stuart 32). To beat the Japanese strike,

other immigrants from Korea, Philippines, and India were brought. The most

recent wave of Asian immigration came to America from Cambodia, Vietnam and

Laos in form of refugees in spring 1975, after the end of the Vietnam war, leaving

behind their "war-torn countries" (Hyung-Chan Kim xiv) and searching for a new

place to live in peace and rebuild their lives. The United States felt that it has a

"moral obligation" (Cashmore 38) towards those refugees by protecting them from

danger and persecution and helping them get resettled in their homeland. Japanese

Americans’ dreams of “freedom, equality, and wealth” were destroyed by World

12

War II. They were sent to internment camps and were regarded as enemies. Even

after the end of the war, Japanese residents could not become American citizens

until 1952 with the passage of McCarran-Walter Immigration Act (Hyung-Chan

Kim, Preface xiv).

The year 1965 is considered a turning point in the history of civil rights and

the history of Asian Americans. This year witnessed the passage of Voting Rights

Act which aimed to eliminate "racial discrimination and local barriers in the

electoral process” (Ancheta, Legacies 19) and encouraged millions of voters to

participate. This law came as a result of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

which prevented racial discrimination in “public and private employment” and in

all activities of life. When the Immigration Act of 1965 became fully effective,

Asian population increased slowly until about 1968. This new immigration law

abolished Asian exclusion and permitted Asians admission based on the following

criteria: (1) "possession of occupation skills needed in the United States labor

market; (2) family unification; (3) status as victims of political or religious

persecution" (Lassiter 67). Many Asian Americans got benefit from these political

procedures. However, these procedures did not put an end to one of their oldest

problems; stereotypes.

Stereotypes of ethnic groups are not a new phenomenon in modern life. Every

ethnic group has a stereotype that reflects how others think about this group.

13

Stereotype is “an exaggerated belief or distorted truth about a person or a

group…passed on from parents to children” (Danico and Ng, Asian American

Stereotypes 122). Regardless of how people believe in the power of stereotype, it is

undeniable that it has a great influence on people's judgments about other ethnic

groups. According to Danico and Ng, since the beginning of their immigration

experience, “there have been many stereotypes of Asians” most of them were spread

by media (Asian American Stereotypes 122). Unlike other types of media, news and

entertainment play a vital role in shaping people’s conscious and influencing their

behaviors and attitudes towards other ethnic groups. This persistent race stereotypes

about Asians in the American culture was a great obstacle in “understanding and

appreciating Asian American literary self-expression” (Elaine Kim, Preface xv).

Lester & Ross believe that news and entertainment images are especially powerful

because

visual messages are products of our sense of sight, not our cognition.

Pictures are highly emotional objects that have long-lasting staying

power within the deepest regions of our brain. But both textual and

visual media messages that stereotype individuals by their

concentrations, frequencies, and omissions become a part of our long-

term memory. And when certain individuals or ethnicities appear only

as criminals, entertainers, and sports heroes, we forget that the vast

14

majority of people—regardless of their particular cultural heritage—

have the same hopes and fears as the rest of us. (3)

Although America is a multi-ethnic community, American media are

controlled by Anglo-Americans, usually referred to as the “White man”. This

forced Asian Americans to depend on less influential means to show their true

identity and fight the imposed stereotypes and they found it in ethnic theatres.

Ethnic theatres are established by and for ethnic minorities, whose cultures,

languages and traditions are different from those of the Anglo-American

mainstream such as Asian American theatres. They existed from the eighteenth

century to serve two purposes. The first purpose was to create a “social centre” and

the other one was to “conjure remembrance of the immigrants' homelands” (Shteir

18). Saan points out that: “Chinese theater served, not only as entertainment, but

also as a means of continuing cultural traditions in the new land…. [f]amiliar food,

native languages, and shared experiences helped ease the struggle and pain

experienced by many immigrants so far from home" (35). Chinese opera and

puppetry shows came to California and Hawaii with immigrants working in

plantation and railroad industries in the mid-1800s. In addition to that, Kabuki

dance was widespread in the Japanese communities of Hawaii and the West Coast

in the early part of the twentieth century (Foley 45).

The publication of ethnic theatre has commonly followed the emergence of

15

prose, poetry, and fiction for very logical and practical reasons. Uno explains that

unlike poetry or fiction, “which can be passed from hand to hand or duplicated

relatively easily, writing for theater implies not only an audience, but production:

performers, costumes, props, and, most important, a physical location in which to

bring all of these elements together (Introduction 4).

Ethnic writing plays an increasingly visible role in the landscape of

American fiction because critics, publishers, and readers have begun to realize that

“some of the most vital American writing is going on in texts written by ethnic

American authors” (Bercovitch 653). Guiyou Huang believes that the rise of this

literature occurred as a direct result of three highly significant events in twentieth-

century American history that provide catalysts and materials for Asian American

writers which are “the Vietnam War and the antiwar protests; the civil rights

movement, spearheaded by African American activists, that was instrumental in

the birth of Asian American studies on university campuses; and the Third World

student protest at San Francisco State and other California universities” (Narrative

overview 24).

For many Asian Americans, the era of the Vietnam War and the civil rights

movements in the United States was an era of “increased awareness of racial and

cultural identity built on their need to identify and establish their uniquely

American identity”. Elaine Kim argues that this new awareness that it was possible

16

and desirable to be both American and nonwhite resulted in

Asian American literary efforts to assert an ethnic American identity

and to challenge old myths and stereotypes. Young writers attempted

to “claim America,” for Asian Americans by demonstrating Asian

roots in American society and culture…. They turned their interest

away from community portraiture and towards questions of individual

Asian American identity within the context of their larger society.

(Elaine Kim, Chinatown 173)

At the beginning of Asian American writings in the 1880s, Asian American

authors mainly detailed “the customs, lifestyles, and traditions of their Asian

homeland. In contrast to the early novels and autobiographies, however, Asian

American drama made its debut with the spotlight firmly on the lives and struggles

of Asians in North America” (Liu ix). According to Wilmeth there were no plays

about Asian Americans on the commercial stage from the late 1880s to the 1950s,

however, after the WWII, Broadway did reflect the public curiosity about the Far

East with hits such as The Tea House of the August Moon, The King and I, and The

World of Suzie Wong. He adds that although these plays were about Asian

characters, they were depicted as “foreigners and often played by non-Asian

actors” (84).

17

The “specific stimulus” that made many Asian American writers in the mid-

1970s choose writing for theatre came from “a particular element within the Asian

American community”. It was the dissatisfaction of Asian American actor, with the

limited opportunities offered by the Hollywood motion picture and television

industry (Uno, Introduction 5-6). As a result of their frustration, several Asian

American actors form coalitions during 1960s and 1970s. Many of them

disappeared quickly and very few groups made their marked contributions in Asian

American theatre history with different aims and results. Bordman and Hischak

note that by 1900 there were “professional opera houses in New York and Boston,

as well as on the West Coast, but most of these floundered and closed in the Great

Depression. It was not until the 1960s that Asian-American theatre started to

develop” (Asian-American 42). In 1965, East West Players, the first Asian

American theatre in the United States was founded under the artistic director of

accomplished actor Mako (Hong, Asian-American 574). The East West Players

began as an "oriental actors' group" that aimed at showing the talents of Asian

American actors to Hollywood producers and to retrieve and present their cultural

heritage on stage (Esther Lee, Actors 26). Uno argues that if an actor got a major

role, “subsequent film opportunities were meager. Although Mako had earned an

Academy Award nomination in 1966 for Best Supporting Actor for his work with

Steve McQueen in the film The Sand Pebbles, comparable substantive dramatic

18

roles were not forthcoming” (Introduction 6).

According to Berson, East West Players “had no repertoire of new plays or

stable of writers” to depend on (The Cambridge Guide to Theatre 54).

Consequently, they started staging adaptations of Asian stories and traditional

western plays until new plays could be written by developing Asian American

playwrights (Arnold 182). Rashomon was the East West Players’ inaugural

production which is based on the short story by Japanese writer Akutagawa

Ryunosuke and it was staged in a small church basement in 1966 (Hong, Asian-

American Almanac 574). This Work indicates “their passion for reviving Asian

ethnic roots. The production of this work solidifies the company under the formal

name, East West Players” (Kurahashi, Rashomon 21). Under the artistic direction

of Mako, East West Players initially focused on play adaptations by Asian

American novelists such as Yukio Mishima, and it also staged Western Classics by

writers such as Lorca and Goldini, providing Asian American actors with the

opportunity to play roles that they were prevented from due to their “color skin”.

Soon after, the company began to concentrate on plays written by Asian

Americans, premiering at least one original work almost every season (Hong,

Asian-American Almanac 574)

The EWP was a great opportunity for Asian American actors to express

themselves and develop their talents. The theatre which still exists today in Los

19

Angeles provides training and the opportunity to learn acting skills for Asian

American actors "in a positive and encouraging atmosphere" (Niiya 109). In

addition to producing classics of the Euro-American canon with all-Asian casts,

the company “sponsored play competitions that promoted the generation of new

scripts” (Foley 46). In the mid-1970s, EWP begin to present plays by new

generations of dramatists “concerned with modern Asian- American themes: David

Henry Hwang, Wakako Yamauchi, Valina Hosuton, and others” (Berson, Reading

the West 231).

The second Asian American theatre to be established in the United States is

Kumu Kahuah in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1971. Its name means “original platform or

stage” (Hong, Asian-American Almanac 575). It was established by several

students of Hawaii University and their theatre professor, Dennis Carroll

(Elizabeth Kim, The Facts on File 40). According to Houston, Kumu Kahau theatre

“is the only Asian American theater company that produces a wide range of plays

that either explore those cultures or are created by persons who are of those

cultures” (The Politics 19).

In 1977, artistic director Tisa Chang founded the Pan Asian Repertory

Theatre. The foundation of this theatre was an important event in the development

of Asian American theatre history. Bordman and Hischak point out that: “David

Henry Hwang was the most promising of the Chinese-American writers, and after

20

several successes Off Broadway, he scored with M. Butterfly (1988), the first

Broadway hit by an Asian-American” (Asian-American 42). Berson argues that

although much of the works presented on this stage had an East Asian slant, they

broadened to include plays with South Asian and Southeast Asian themes in the

1990s. She adds that this theatre aims at producing

contemporary Asian American authors, translated Asian masterworks,

and multicultural adaptations of Western classics. It has produced

many noteworthy productions as Tea House, Lao She’s drama about

50 years of modern Chinese history; R. A. Shiomi’s Yellow Fever, a

wry twist on the hard-boiled detective genre; Shogun Macbeth, a

Japanese reworking of the classic tragedy; as well as works by David

Henry Hwang, Momoko Iko, Philip Kan Gotanda, and a collaboration

with experimental director Ping Chong. (Cambridge Guide to Theatre

922)

In 1973, playwright Frank Chin founded the Asian American Theater

Company (AATC). It begins as a workshop sponsored by the American

Conservatory Theater, by 1975 AATC had become its own professional theater

company “dedicated to the production of plays by Asian Pacific Islander American

dramatists and the development and support of Asian Pacific Island American

actors, designers, and technicians” (Abbeele et al 203). The Asian American

21

Theater Company (AATC) was originally established as the Asian American

Theater Workshop (AATW), “devoted to developing Asian American writers”

(Hong, Asian-American Almanac 576). Abbeele et al believe that: “nowadays,

AATC has secured its place in the racial discourse of postmodern identity politics;

it still considers itself one of the only places in the country where Asian Pacific

Islander American artists can be in contact with their own community” (203). After

the resignation of Frank Chin in 1978, the AATC made some changes. Instead of

an “artistic director”, a group of young Sansei1 artists managed the company by

forming what they called “the artistic committee” (Esther Lee, The Second Wave

140).

As an expanded group, AATC flourished, attracting numerous Asian

American writers, actors, directors, and designers “with little or no previous

experience”. Throughout its more than 20-year history, “AATC has been a testing

ground for playwrights such as Philip Kan Gotanda and David Henry Hwang, and

a training facility for actors including Dennis Dun, Kelvin Han Yee, Amy Hill,

Brenda Wong Aoki, and others who have moved on to star in films, on television,

and in other venues” (Hong, Asian-American Almanac 577). Esther Lee believes

that the first season was “quite successful” but the most impressive aspect of this

season was the fact that “three out of the twelve shows were written by Philip Kan

Gotanda: A Song for the Nisei2 Fisherman, Bullet Headed Birds, and The Avocado

22

Kid. During the decade of 1980s, Gotanda was the most produced writer at AATC”

(The Second Wave 140).

The 1990s was important to Asian American theatre due to the emergence of

Asian American Solo performers like Lane Nishikawa's I'm on a Mission from

Buddha that “takes a comic look at growing up Asian American”. Other

performances include Brenda Wong Aoki’s Uncle Gunjaro's Girlfriend (1998) that

“looks at the life of her great-uncle, the first Japanese to marry a Caucasian in

California, exploring some important issues like the wrath of racist, anti-

miscegenation society and causing his wife to lose her American citizenship”

(Foley 47).

These companies became “alternative arenas for plays outside the dominant

European American canon, and they drew an Asian American audience which

largely ignored the offerings of mainstream American theater because it rarely

spoke directly to or about them" (Kowalewski 252). With cutbacks in government

support for the arts in 1990s some companies, like the Asian American Theater in

San Francisco, have experienced economic difficulties; others, like the North West

Asian American Theater Company and Theater of Yugen, collaborate with

Japanese companies to fund new work (Foley 47).

These repertory companies and their productions were greatly affected by

23

the Asian American movement of the 1960s and 1970s. They drew awareness to

“the social and legal history of Asians in the United States” (Josephine Lee,

Critical Strategies 16). According to Wei, each group of Asians in America has had

a long history of fighting for equality and justice by using its “members' common

cultural heritage and ethnic identity” and on this basis they have engaged in “labor

struggles, initiated litigation in the U.S. courts, participated in “homeland” politics

and shared other activities to protect their interests, however, the small size of each

Asian ethnic group limited its effectiveness”. He adds that the civil rights

movement of the 1960s was the motive that made Asian Americans expose

problems about “racism”, “ethnicity” and their political participation in the

American society and paved the way for the Asian American Movement (Asian

American Movement 1). The movement was successful in achieving some of its

goals including “the Supreme Court cases Lau V. Nicolas in 1974 which demanded

bilingual education and Wards Cove V. Antonio which ruled the employment

discrimination against Filipinos violated constitutional protection” (Nakanishi

245). However, it suffered from some failings including

the lack of a national leader like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X,

or Russell Means. Additionally, Asian Americans constituted only one

percent of the population and so their struggles were often ignored by

the press and others in the U.S. society. Finally, the movement lacked

24

a specific agenda that could unite its constituents. (Nakanishi 245)

The Asian American Movement began in the late 1960s as a result of two

important historical developments: the emergence of a generation of Asian

American college students and the public protests surrounding the Vietnam War.

“With the help of a few activists from the working class, these Asian American

students made up the majority of the Movement activists and were the Movements'

main driving force” (Wei, Asian American Movement 1). For Asian Americans,

the main aim of the Movement is to defend their rights in a [multi-ethnic society]

and to change the prevailing perception that “Asians in America are an inferior

race, or at best an exotic foreign group” (Wei, Asian American Youth 300). The

riots of the ghettos across America and the aftermath of the Vietnam War made

things worse. Many Asian Americans participated in many movements organized

to change the country but “it was mainly the antiwar movement that brought them

together psychologically and politically and make them aware of their

"Asianness"” (Wei, Asian American Movement 2) and their need for an Asian

American Movement. Many Asian Americans felt that the Vietnam War was not

only relayed to “imperialism” but also to “racism” (Chi 36). Asian American

soldiers experienced racism due to their racial [and physical] resemblance to the

enemy (Chi 36) and they were treated as “perpetual foreigners” not as Americans

(Elaine Lee, Introduction 221). Meagher notes that the Asian American movement

25

that emerged in the critical years of the late 1960s and early 1970s differed from

other ethnic movements in a number of ways.

The battlegrounds for Asian Americans were campuses than

neighborhood streets. The initial major battles were the Third World

Strikes, at San Francisco State College in the fall and winter of 1968

and 1969 and the University of California at Berkeley in the winter of

1969... The other difference was the importance of the antiwar

movement in provoking the new Asian American consciousness. It

reflected the movement’s campus roots, and also reflected the special

significance of a war in Asia and its racial consequences for Asian

people in the United States. (680)

Since Asian American antiwar activists connect between “imperialism

abroad and racism at home, they focused on self-determination in their own

communities” and one of the major focuses of the Asian American Movement was

“the educational system” (Fujino 224). Although the involvement of young Asian

American activists in Asian ethnic communities was “relatively short-lived”, they

left a profound mark on college campuses across the country. The most significant

result was “the founding of the new interdisciplinary field of Asian American

Studies” (Wei, Asian American Youth 305).

26

Inspired by civil rights and Black Power movements, young Asian American

college students experienced an “ethnic awakening and demanded to know more

about their history and culture in America” (Wei, Asian American Youth 305).

Wei believes that the well known Third World Strikes at San Francisco State

College (now San Francisco State University) and at the University of California,

Berkeley, during the late 1960s were “pivotal political movements” because Asian

American students and other students of color joined forces to protest the exclusion

of their histories from the college curricula. Together, they fought for “equal

access to educational opportunities and demanded that curricula reflect the

histories of racial and ethnic minorities. They insisted on courses that were

developed and taught by members of racial and ethnic minority groups” (Asian

American Youth 305).

The strike lasted five months and succeeded in establishing ethnic studies on

campus. Ethnic studies affected students in two ways: "first, it offered classes on

their history and culture from a new perspective that radicalized them, and second,

many students became familiar with coalition building, and, on the basis of that

experience, gravitated toward an internationalist politics" (Pulido 82). Asian

American students realized that their racial position was more similar to that of

African Americans, rather than to white Americans (Yeh 83).

All these political and social events had a great effect on the Asian American

27

Theatre. Asian American writers felt “intense empathy” with people in Vietnam

and this appeared in their writings. Their empathy was “racial rather than overtly

political, because many Asian Americans viewed racism as a political issue” and it

was intensified by the “sense of the similarity between languages, histories, and

traditions of a peasant life in Vietnam as compared with the Asian American

writer’s ancestral land” (Elaine Lee, Multiple Mirrors 221).

Asian American theatre became “a hip, irreverent, and nervy, incisively

critiquing the frustrations and paradoxes of the Asian American experience.

Eventually these writers became integrated into mainstream institutions” (Wilmeth

84). Foremost is David Henry Hwang, whose early works premiered at New York's

Public Theatre. His M. Butterfly won a Tony award, and he remains “a major

Broadway figure” (Berson and Gener 84). M. Butterfly which ran on Broadway for

two years and won the Tony Award draws upon Puccini’s (1904) opera, Madame

Butterfly, which was based on the (1900) play by David Belasco (Saddik 155).

Esther Lee points out that most people thought that the Broadway production of

David Henry Hwang's was “the single event that put Asian American theatre on the

national and international cultural map” as they did not know that Asian American

theatre appeared in New York for the first time in 1972 with works by Frank Chin

and Ping Chong. She adds that although M. Butterfly quickly became an important

masterpiece in drama anthologies, “Asian American theatre history, in its richness

28

and complexity, rarely found its audience” (The links and locations 1). One of the

problems that Asian American actors faced was casting white actors for main

Asian roles on stage.

Although the range of roles offered to Asian American actors are often

limited, white actors continued to be cast for Asian key roles on stage. White

actors used to “to don facial prosthetics, hairpieces, eye-pieces, and heavy makeup

to play an Asian or islander character”. However, “no Asian or Pacific Islander has

been invited to adopt the reverse in prosthetics (lowering cheekbones, sharpening

noses, flattening eyes, folding eyelids, and donning light-hued makeup) and take a

stab at Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara in a remake of Gone with the Wind”

(Brislin 105). Casting white actors for Asian roles is not a new phenomenon in

Asian American theatre. The Broadway musical A Chinese Honeymoon (1902) had

an all-white, British cast. Comedies and musicals of the 1950s (prominently The

Teahouse Moon, The King and I, and South Pacific) all features white actors for

Asian key roles (Barton & McGregor 356). In 1990, the situation become more

intensive with producer Cameron Mackintosh’s decision to cast a white British

actor, Jonathan Pryce, as the male Asian main role in the musical Miss Saigon

(Schlote, Greenwood 997) which is a “new variant of M. Butterfly Theme” (Moy,

Death of Asia 355). The producer claimed that Asian American actors are not

talented enough to play the “London-originated role on Broadway” (Hong,

29

Columbia 227). David Henry Hwang and B. D. Wong led a protest by Asian

American artists for this casting, “igniting a vigorous public debate about the

meaning of ‘non-traditional’ casting and multiculturalism” (Berson, The

Cambridge Guide to Theatre 55(. Bordman & Hischak point out that this show was

given more press coverage right before opening when producer Cameron

MacKintosh threatened to cancel the production and return the $25 million in

advance sales “if Actors Equity4 did not allow Pryce to re-create his London

performance in New York. Mackintosh won, Pryce received a Tony, and the

musical was a giant hit” (Miss Saigon 436).

Although, Asian American drama has been greatly “influenced and shaped

by the work and initiative by Asian American women theater artists, it continues to

be identified most often with the work of prominent male playwrights such as

Frank Chin, Philip Kan Gotanda, and David Henry Hwang” (Scholte, Asian

American 226). The deep search for Asian American plays that address broader

public concerns resulted in finding that Asian American women playwrights began

their literary contributions as early as the 1920s with The Submission of Rose Moy

(1924), written by Ling-Ai Li under the name of Gladys Li. It dramatizes a

Chinese American girl's rejection of an arranged marriage (Uno, Introduction 5).

The Submission of Rose Moy premiered in 1928 at the Arthur Andrews Theatre at

the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. It was at “the forefront of the emergence of

30

Asian American drama in which women played an important role across the

country” (qtd. in Scholte, Asian American 226-227). This play is noteworthy

because it deals with themes still popular in contemporary Asian American and

other ethnic theatres like the different values, cultures and traditions between the

West and the Far East. Miles Liu notes that the “Western emphasis on freedom and

the Chinese advocacy of filial obedient collide when the female protagonist

decides to become a women’s suffrage advocate while her father simply wants her

to marry a wealthy married man”. Li’s plays were staged in the late 1920s but they

did not attract critical attention like other Asian American plays until the early

1970s with the appearance of some outstanding Asian American plays (preface ix).

In 1975 Li was awarded the Bicentennial Woman of the Year award by the

National Association of Women Artists of America (Guiyou Huang, Ling-Ai-Li

69).

While the participation of Asian American women playwrights from abroad

range of Asian pacific backgrounds continues to grow in the Asian American

theatre, Japanese American women have made the primary contributions as

playwrights thus far. Arnold argues that:

Playwrights Wakako Yamauchi, Momoko Iko, and Velina Houston

write about the experience of two waves of immigrants, the Issei3

women: those who came before World War II and were incarcerated,

31

and those who came after the war as war brides. In the Issei plays the

writers document their mothers’ histories, dramatizes modes of

survival. They also write about their own experiences as Nisei in plays

that focus on the psychological ramifications of youth terminated by

the camp/war experience. In the Issei plays of Yamauchi and Houston,

they write about isolated women whose strength comes from the

mother/child relationship. In the Nisei plays of Yamauchi and

Momoko Iko, the playwrights examine the uneasy relationships

between women and men whose reliance on traditional roles has been

shattered by the war. (183)

In her book Asian American Playwrights: A Bio-bibliographical Critical

Sourcebook, Miles Liu argues that in what might be considered the first Asian

American dramatic works in the United States are the works of Sadakichi

Hartmann, Confucius, Buddha, and Christ, which were wrote between 1889 and

1897 (ix). In 1893, Hartmann wrote his symbolist play Christ. The New England

Watch and the Ward Society burned most of the copies of this play and Hartmann

was sent to prison. Fugita notes that even though “the play was extremely

moralistic, he was charged with obscenity” (104).

Plays by mainland Asian Americans did not gain any critical appreciation

until the early 1970s, when there appeared some controversial writings by Asian

32

Americans. Frank Chin’s The Chickencoop Chinaman was first staged at the

prestigious American Place Theatre in May 1972. Guiyou Huang notes that in this

play the race factor looms large:

characters of Caucasian, Native American, Asian, and African origins

all appear on the stage in various capacities. At the core of the

interrelated issues and concerned characters are once again the

precarious condition of the Asian American family, represented by the

father, and the identity of confused and interracial children. Chin’s

The Year of the Dragon premiered at the same theater in May 1974,

and was videotaped and broadcast by PBS the following year. This

play probes the connectedness of the individual, the family, and the

community situated in the dominant culture. While race is not a

predominant factor in the lives of the Chinatown characters, die-hard

traditions exert a considerable influence upon members of the second

generation. (Narrative Overview 17)

Frank Chin along with fellow writers-editors Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson

Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong assembled in 1974 one of the first literary

anthologies featuring the work of Asian American writers; Aiiieeeee! An Anthology

of Asian American Writers. According to Ho, it was very difficult to have their

work published because it was considered “too ethnic”. He adds that the editors of

33

this anthology introduced “the long history of racism against Asians in the United

States, forms of Asian American literature, and culture by the film and publishing

industries, and by the educational and capitalist systems” (87). Chin and the other

Aiiieeeee! Writers believe that America has double standard of values due to the

contradictions between “American claims to democracy and its imperial march

through Asia” (James Lee 186). In their introduction, the editors explained the

reasons for choosing this title for their anthology:

Our anthology is exclusively Asian American. That means Filipino,

Chinese, and Japanese Americans, American born and raised, who

got their China and Japan from the radio, off the silver screen, from

television, out of comic books, from the pushers of white American

culture that pictured the yellow man as something that when

wounded, sad, or angry, or swearing, or wondering whined, shouted,

or screamed “aiiieeeee!” Asian America, so long ignored and forcibly

excluded from creative participation in American culture, is wounded,

sad, angry, swearing, and wondering, and this is his AIIIEEEEE!!!

(qtd. in Imbarrato et al. 72)

In 1991, the same editorial team published The Big Aiiieeeee!, they

narrowed the focus of Asian American writing by subtitling this second collection:

An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature. “The Big

34

Aiiieeeee got smaller” (Srikanth, World 55). Moser argues that in the anthology

and their respective works, writers focused on “American-born, non-Christian,

male writers; in addition, they identified writers only of Chinese and Japanese

descent, the most established Asian American groups” (86). However, narrowing

the focus of the two anthologies on certain groups was a mistake because since

their literature was new, they should have included the works of other groups like

Korean Americans and Vietnamese Americans to give the mainstream critics and

readers a semi-comprehensive view of their ethnic group by showing the

similarities and diversities of it and encourage people to adopt a greater ethnic

understanding towards them.

Asian American playwrights belong to different ethnic groups, however,

they still share some values. Abbotson believes that while each playwright looks at

the Asian American experience from a different angle, “they collectively expose

stereotypes, broaden our perspective of Asian American identity, and encourage

people to adopt a greater ethnic understanding and tolerance” (Thematic Guide

41). Asian American plays are still infrequently presented to a mass audience.

However, some of the dramatists who found opportunity in these smaller venues

“have broken through cultural and economic barriers to get their work performed

in mainstream West Coast regional theaters (the Mark Taper Forum in Los

Angeles and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Northern California), in

35

commercial Broadway and Off Broadway theatres, and on public television”

(Kowalewski 252-253). In spite of the great success of pioneers like Gotanda,

David Henry Hwang, and Frank Chin, on many levels, Hong believes that “each

Asian American is still perceived as the foreigner, the other, and the outside of the

mainstream." Based on Philip Kan Gotanda’s experience, “even those Asian

Americans who by some arbitrary definition have “made it” continue to be

stereotyped” (Asian-American Almanac, 593).

36

Chapter II:

Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die

Philip Kan Gotanda (1951- ) is one of the leading figures in Asian American

theatre history. He is a Sansei Japanese American playwright, producer, director

and an actor. Gotanda's father, Wilfred Itsuta Gotanda, came to the United States to

study medicine at the University of Arkansas. He led a successful medical career in

serving the large Japanese American community of Stockton, California.

Unfortunately, he was interned in Rohwer Camp in Arkansas during the World

War II. After the end of the war, he continued his life in Stockton and married a

schoolteacher and started his family. Philip Kan Gotanda was born the youngest of

three sons to his Nisei4 parents on December 17, 1951, in Stockton, California

(Kaplan, Philip Kan Gotanda 69).

Throughout his adolescence, Gotanda was attracted to rock music, writing his

own music and performing with local bands. With an intention to become a

psychiatrist, Gotanda enrolled at the University of California Santa Cruz in 1969,

and he also continued to write lyrics and play music. In such domains, Kaplan

notes that: "Gotanda's creative side gained the upper hand" (Philip Kan Gotanda

70). Eventually, after one year of university studies, he went to Japan where he

spent a year studying the ceramic techniques with the artist Hiroshi Seto. Gotanda's

37

knowledge of the pottery-making process gave him the inspiration to write his play

Ballad of Yachio (1996) which is based on a true story about his parental aunt's

suicide and Yohen (1997), a drama of domestic conflict between a Nisei and her

African American husband (70). Omi believes that Gotanda’s experience in Japan

did not provide him with material for his dramatic plots only, but it was also a

good opportunity for him to go deep inside a culture where he was not defined as

"Other" (qtd. in Kaplan, Philip Kan Gotanda 70). Gotanda's experience in Japan

has made him realize that Americans of Asian descent need to make more efforts

“to maneuver themselves psychologically in order to deflect the impact of racism”

(Kaplan, Philip Kan Gotanda 70).

Although Gotanda has been one of the pioneers of Asian American theatre, his

theatrical works did not appear until 1970s, because of his efforts as a song writer.

After graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbra, he spent two

years writing songs about Asian American identity. Kaplan notes that Gotanda

found that writing songs was “so limited and insufficient to express himself”, so he

began to write plays (Philip Kan Gotanda 70). However, writing for theatre does

not mean that Gotanda gave up his musical career completely, but he rather

utilized this experience into his new career as a playwright. As a result of his

previous career in the musical field, it was not a surprise to know that his first play

is a musical called The Avocado Kid (70). The Avocado Kid or Zen in the Art of

38

Guacamole was first produced at East West Players theatre in Los Angeles while

he was at Hastings College of law in San Francisco. This play is based on the

Japanese folktale of Momotaro; the main character comes out of an avocado and

goes to fight against a band of outlaws in a musical contest. In 1980, after its

production at the Asian American Theatre Company in San Francisco, The

Avocado Kid received a Cable Car Award nomination for best musical (Lawsin

149).

Gotanda's works have been produced nationally at many theatres such as the

Asian American Theatre Company, East West Players, Berkeley Repertory

Theatre, and Manhattan Theatre Club. He is the recipient of many awards and

fellowships like a Guggenheim Foundation scholarship, three National Endowment

for the Arts Artist Grants, three Rockefeller Playwriting Awards, the 1989 Will

Glickman Playwriting Award, a PEW Theater Community Group National Theatre

Artist Award, a Gerbode and McKnight Foundation Fellowship, the Theatre

Communication Group/National Endowment for the Arts Directing Fellowship,

and Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award (Amano 322-323).

Being influenced by the civil rights and ethnic identity, he began to write

about the “changing reality of Asian-American life, with all of its frustration,

contradiction, and glory. He is concerned with generational and gender

expectations and the role of racism within the dynamics of the Asian American

39

experience” (Abbotson, The Facts 203). Yogi notes that in his works, Gotanda has

portrayed Japanese Americans “not as simple characters like those represented in

the media but as complex individuals due to the impact of the diversity of cultures

around them”. He adds that

In his play A Song for Nisei Fisherman (1995) he explores the life and

struggles of a Nisei doctor in adapting to racism and to society. The

Wash (1995) focuses on the break-up of an elderly Nisei couple and

the effect of this separation on their two daughters. In Fish Head Soup

(1995) Gotanda reveals the model minority image through the

portrayal of a Japanese American family whose problems have

become worse by the reappearance of an adult son who was supposed

to be drowned (455).

Gotanda believes that one can move from being recognized as an ethnic

American writer to the mainstream arena without compromising or scarifying one's

ideas, interests or beliefs. In other words, writing for a broader audience does not

require a systematic using of all things Asian. An examination of several of

Gotanda's plays shows his attempts to pass over hyphenation and its marginality, to

put himself in a more central position and speak to a larger audience (Dunbar).

In his plays, Gotanda addresses broader social and cultural issues that go

beyond the Asian American community. Dunbar believes that Gotanda’s plays

40

witness his movement away from works which can be read as “Asian American” to

those “with more universal themes, not restricted by the ethnic limits”. He adds

that this movement, however, “is not an abandonment of ethnicity, but a movement

towards identification as an American playwright, away from this classification as

an Asian American playwright”.

There are two of Gotanda's plays which are completely different from his

other plays in their styles and themes. The first play is The Dream of Kitamura

(1983), drawn from stories collected from Gotanda's family, friends, and his

dreams. It is based on the story of violence which curses a family “living in

mythical feudal society” (Amano 324). The other play is Day Standing on Its Head

(1994) which “explores the midlife crisis of a cerebral Japanese American law

professor whose memories of a 1970s campus strike create surreal fantasies”

(Fugita 102). Gotanda's characters face problems beause of their Japanese

American history and culture; however, their struggles reveal "psychological and

emotional realities that resonate beyond the Japanese American community (Yogi

455). In 2003, he wrote Natalie Wood is Dead about two women's experience in

Hollywood. Gotanda is also known for directing three independent films; The Kiss

(1992), Drinking Tea (1999), and Life Tastes Good (1996) which were featured in

the Sundance Film Festival (Kihan Lee, Philip Kan Gotanda 94).

41

Although Gotanda was born after the internment of Japanese Americans, the

main theme of many of his plays are drawn from the forced internment of many

Japanese immigrants and their American-born children in concentration camps

after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the lasting psychological

effects of this experience on them, such as The Wash (1987) A Song for a Nisei

Fisherman (1980) The Fish Head Soup (1991), and Sister Matsumoto (1997).

Unlike his contemporary playwrights such as Lane Nishikawa, whose “internment

camp plays are set in the camps, Gotanda's internment camp plays are set after the

war” and explore the lasting devastating impact of racism and camp experiences on

Japanese Americans, “including internalized racism and self-hatred" (Amano 324).

Gotanda's play Sisters Matsumoto, produced by Seattle Repertory Theatre in

1997, dramatizes the life of three Japanese American sisters trying to reconstruct

their lives after being released from internment camps of World War II (Abbotson,

The Facts 203). Amano notes that: “although the victimization of Japanese

Americans during World War II is a prominent theme in Gotanda's plays, he also

explores the faults of the Japanese American community .... ” like in his play

A Song for a Nisei Fisherman, when Itsuta shows his racist bias

toward his son's relationship with a Chinese American woman, and in

The Wash, in which the father refuses to acknowledge that his only

grandson is the product of an interracial marriage, and in Sisters

42

Matsumoto, with the war and the background experience at the

background of the play, Gotanda reveals a classicist bias while

exposing the Japanese Americans' struggles in a racist culture and the

economic aftermath of war. (325-326)

Gotanda's other plays include American Tattoo (1985) and Jan Ken Po

(1986). American Tattoo is a play based on Japanese American internment camp

experience, and it was read on stage in Berkeley, California, by the Berkeley

Repertory Theatre in 1982. Gotanda wrote Jan Ken Po in collaboration with David

Henry Hwang and R. A. Shiomi, and it was produced in San Francisco by the

Asian American Theatre Company in 1986 (Amano 327-328). Gotanda’s literary

contributions continue in the twenty first century with his plays Floating Weeds

(2001) about emotional and mental problems, Under the Rainbow (2002) about

male obsession of female orientalism. He also wrote an adaptation of Ibsen’s

Hedda Gabler retitling it The Wind Cries Mary (2002). Abboston notes that in the

recent years Gotanda has experimented with several collaborative works, including

“A Fist of Roses (2004), an amalgam of sound, movement, and image, depicting

male violence against women, and Manzanar: An American Story (2005), a

multimedia, orchestral, and spoken-word reenvisioning of the internment

experience” (203).

43

Philip Kan Gotanda, the Bay Area’s leading Asian American playwright,

collaborates with UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance

Studies in a unique partnership to develop and produce I Dream of Chang and Eng.

I Dream of Chang and Eng is Gotanda’s new play about the incredible life of the

most famous Siamese twin, Chang and Eng Bunker and how they started their lives

as touring freak exhibition and ended as businessmen. Jarret suggests that the play

is “a perfect example of a brand new play that would be very difficult to pursue

and develop due to the fact that the story encompasses the life story of these

Siamese twins, Cheng and Eng, and the many significant individuals and

experiences woven into the tapestry of their lives”. Philip Kan Gotanda has been

trying to write about Chang and Eng for almost 30 years, but “the twins' incredible

life story was just too big” (Jones). Gotanda’s play is not an exact tale of their

lives, but a dream tale of how he “perceived” what their lives were like, because of

the “absence of enough factual documented information about their daily life”

(Jarret).

Esther Lee points out that Gotanda “challenged the naturalistic tendencies in

Asian American theatre and demanded space for alternative expression”. For

Gotanda, writing about Asian American community does not mean that he always

uses any material objects used in their daily life like traditional clothes, food,

drinks and even their decent behaviors and manners. But he rather portrays his

44

characters as normal people but face problems because of their ethnicity or because

of their bad memories and experiences. Each subsequent work, “Gotanda wrote

more dialogue and less music, and the more dialogue he wrote, the more his

writing style moved towards narrative storytelling”. As a result of this new

tendency in his writings, Gotanda's audience base widened. The Wash (1987), for

instance, was the first of Gotanda's works to receive significant mainstream

attention. It was Gotanda's first play to not premiere at an Asian American theatre

company. The play received a workshop production at the Mark Taper Forum in

Los Angeles in 1987; a world premiere production at the Eureka Theatre in 1987;

full productions at the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Northwest Asian American

Theatre in 1990 and at Mark Taper Forum in 1991. Gotanda also wrote the film

version of The Wash, which was produced in 1988. After the great success of The

Wash, Gotanda found more opportunities in regional theatres. Berkeley Repertory

Theatre supported his work and commissioned him throughout the late 1980s and

1990s (The Second Wave Playwrights142-143).

Gotanda's work with Asian American actors provided him with brilliant

ideas for his play Yankee Dawg You Die. The play takes its title from a game that

Gotanda found himself playing in a coffee shop with a friend trying to remember

“the most famous classic lines that evil Japanese solider used to say in World War

II movies” (Shimakawa 115). In Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg, it is obvious that Philip

45

Kan Gotanda suggests that Asian American actors tend to revolve in a vicious

circle of humiliation, oppression, and underestimation as long as they work in a

culture that always demeans and disdains any race beyond the white one and that

believes in the superiority of the white race to other races.

The play considers the interethnic relationship between two men ─ a

Chinese American and a Japanese American ─ in the American entertainment

industry. Guiyou Huang notes that: “The characters’ dialogues and interactions

illuminate the evolution of the roles Asian men have played on stage and expose

the stereotyping by racism against Asians in general and Asian male actors in

particular” (Narrative Overview 18). It explores the struggles of two Asian

American actors of different generations, a veteran performer and an ambitious

younger man. Through their one year complex relationship, Gotanda discusses the

ethical and artistic dilemmas of people who are forced to work within a different

cultural system that often demeans non-white ethnic groups. The desire of the two

characters to show real Asians away from these stereotypic images is always

destroyed by the racist requirements of the entertainment industry. Crane suggests

that the play “begins with feeling that they are different and ends with the

realization of their similarities as actors of Asian descent, and as humans full of

power ambitions and abiding insecurities”.

46

Gotanda always condemns and feels sorry for Asian American actors who

are forced to play demeaning roles; and he is also troubled by those in the Japanese

American community who are obsessed with “the idea of being a second-class

citizen” and by “mainstream media that continue to shut out or distort Asian

images” (Cheung 13). Gotanda believes that the only road to recovery “is to speak

out, to say what you have to say...to create new works—put your own works out

there” (qtd. in Cheung 13). When Gotanda wrote the play, he did not have any

particular actor in his mind. He points out that “The play actually draws from a lot

of people; there’s no one person in any reference…. It’s drawn from a lot of

different actors” (qtd. in Ito 179).

The reader is introduced to the old actor Vincent Chang who is proud of

never turning down a role and whose reputation as a famous actor was built due to

his acceptance of acting humiliating, stereotypic roles. He gives up many things

including his dignity and his responsibility toward his own culture to get a role. He

markets himself as a Chinese actor but later the reader figures out that he is a

Japanese man. He changed his name after the World War II so that he could find

work, but the only roles offered to him were stereotypic and humiliating. He

justifies this lie as it was his only way to get a job. Vincent does not feel ashamed

of playing a caricatured role of a Japanese solider during the World War II since no

one is going to blame him. Later on his life turns upside down with the appearance

47

of a younger Asian American actor; Bradley Yamashita. Bradley represents the

younger generation of the Asian actors who are looking for fame and glory without

scarifying their ideas or dignity through playing respectable and valuable roles. He

believes in himself and his opinions. He thinks that being a talented actor is enough

to be offered good and respectable roles. Bradley attacks Vincent vigorously and

confronts him with all his faults. He tries to make him aware of his cultural self-

denial and his irresponsibility toward his original roots.

The play considers important issues about representation and self-

representation of Asians in America. Throughout the play the reader can feel the

internal psychological conflict within the characters between their desires to lead a

successful career and survive in a community that always underestimate Asians

and Asian Americans and their responsibilities towards their cultures. Gotanda

offers a contrast between the old actor, Vincent Chang, who has ‘never turned

down a role. Good or bad’ (Gotanda 22) as he believes that the responsibility of the

actor is to do the role well and Bradley Yamashita, the aspiring young actor who

believes that Asians should be offered realistic stage roles. The play uses a

“stereotypical cinematic portrayal of a Japanese solider to assure the general

reception of Asianness in the popular consciousness. The opening scene of the

play, which attacks this portrayal of the Japanese, continues through the rest of the

play” (Moy, David Henry Huang’s M. Butterfly 82). Josephine Lee believes that

48

Yankee Dawg suggests that stereotypes are “human constructions rather than

essential things, and insists that the actor had an independent self that is different

from the stereotypes he plays”. She adds that the play exposes “Vincent's fallacy

that his self can remain untouched by social practice where boundaries between

actor and the stereotypic roles he plays or between real and theatrical action are

consistently eroded” (The Seduction 103).

Gotanda’s play provides the reader with some historical and political events

that help shape the distorted images of Asian Americans and show how the

American media spread these images and make them familiar and strongly

believed by the American audiences. Media have contributed a lot in creating the

distorted images of Asian Americans in non-Asian eyes. On one hand, Asian

American men have been portrayed “as a foreigner or a threat to the national

security of the United States and who mastered the marital arts and on the other

hand, Asian American women have been portrayed as dutiful and obedient unlike

white women” (Danico and Ng, Asian American Stereotypes 122). Asian

American roles in movies and television are usually “unfavorable to be familiar to

the American viewers” (Larson 68).

Larson notes that the source of threat portrayed in entertainment was changed

over the time, “responding to geopolitical events and international relations. For

example, the image of Vietnamese was negative during the Vietnam War and this

49

was the same during World War II as Japanese soldiers were portrayed as brutal

and inhuman” (69). This shows the bad impact of American politics on Asians’

lives. Asian American playwright Velina Hasu Houston believes that in the last

decades, there have been some improvements in casting of Asian American actors

in non-traditional roles that are not related to race such as lawyers, doctors,

farmers, laborers, artists, architects, therapists, etc. She states that: “for every three

actors who have been fortunate enough to experience these changes, there are a lot

of talented actors who have not” (Foreword xi). This indicates that casting Asian

American actors for non-stereotypic roles is an exception and not a rule. Also, it is

very rarely to see images of Asian Americans from the perspective of Asian

American community (Danico and Ng, Asian American Stereotypes 127).

Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die is an “angry play” that offers “a complex

critique of the stereotypic image created by media” by focusing on two Asian

American actors. This condition is made in the opening scene, "Interlude I," in

which Vincent appeared portraying a ‘Jap solider’ (Gotanda 6) in a 1940s-era

movie. The ‘slanty eyes’ (Gotanda 6) of Sergeant Moto and his cartoonish accent,

which does not tell us the fact that he was graduated from the University of

California, Los Angeles, “shows a clear example of the stereotypic media image of

the Asian male, in this case a post-World War II mediatized Imaginary” (Klaver

63) that is referred to in the course of the play: Charlie Chop Suey, or as Bradley

50

calls ‘a Chinese Stepping Fetchit,’ (Gotanda 21). Vincent articulates what becomes

the play's basic concern with racial self identity: "why can't you hear what I'm

saying? Why can't you see me as I really am"? (Gotanda 6) “This concern frames

the discourse coherence in the play's realist scenes as it develops from social into

personal dialogues.” (Vorlicky 190-191). Vincent and Bradley are angry at these

sorts of media images of the Asians, which are white fantasies of Asian identity to

assure the superiority of the white race.

The “pedagogical mode” and the “particular twist” appear from the first

scene of the play and this is clear when the older actor, who is supposed to guide

and teach the younger one, is instead instructed from him. Una explains that when

“Vincent says “movie,” Bradley corrects it “Film”; when Vincent says “low-

budget,” Bradley corrects it “independent”; and when Vincent says “oriental,”

Bradley corrects it to “Asian” (Una, Staging Place 226).

In the play's opening “realist scene” (Vorlicky 191) at a Hollywood Hills

party, Vincent meets Bradley Yamashita. Bradley is eager to meet Vincent:

‘Everybody knows who you are. Especially in the community….’ (Gotanda 8)

Vincent on the other hand shows no much care about this: ‘I do not really notice or

quite frankly care, if someone is Caucasian or oriental….’ (Gotanda 8) This was an

unfavorable beginning of a relationship and in some sense the rest of the play is an

“extended gloss on the many ways and reasons that this statement is a lie, and what

51

its costs are” (Una, Staging Place 226). Although they are “generationally and

culturally different” from each other, Vincent recognizes Bradley's talent and

ambition (Uno, Yankee Dawg 151). Getting into a social dialogue, the two of them

begin to discuss somewhat defensively, the status of their careers. Quickly,

Bradley focuses on race and how it could influence “a minority actor's career in the

entertainment industry (Vorlicky 191). Through their conversation, the reader

begins to get acquainted with the two characters.

According to Moy, Gotanda measures with much care “the depth of Asian

American desire to find role models”. Bradley's misplaced identification with Neil

Sedaka, a Jewish pop singer with a Japanese sounding name, causes Yamashita to

mistake him for America's first ‘Japanese rock n' roll star’ (Gotanda 20). Failing to

find an adequate human model for behavior, Gotanda seems to suggest that “many

Asian American considered that the Japanese monster Godzilla is a source of

cultural pride and self-identification” (David Henry Huang’s M. Butterfly 83). The

inadequacy of these media images shaped Bradley's fascination during his

childhood so he believed that Godzilla is an Asian hero-figure. Bradley describes

how he was ‘craving for a hero, for a symbol, for a secret agent to carry out his

secret deeds’ (Gotanda 33) and found it in Godzilla because “he believes that this

creature is strong enough to take revenge for him on racist whites who would be

exactly the opposite of Vincent's emasculated characters” (Klaver 64-65).

52

In the first part of the play, Vincent replays a scene from his old play Tea

Cakes and Moon Songs. He asks Bradley to join him. Although the scene is

humiliating, but Bradley ‘is swept along by the enthusiasm of Vincent’ (Gotanda

21) into singing the outrageously stereotyped song with a chorus of ‘So Solly

Cholly’ (Gotanda 21) in a high pitched falsetto. For several minutes the two are

‘whirling around the stage. Vincent singing and tap dancing with Bradley in tow

singing in a high pitched falsetto. Both are getting more and more involved, acting

out more and more outrageous stereotypes’ (Gotanda 21). Then Bradley begins to

realize what he is doing and angrily shouts at Vincent ‘you're acting like a Chinese

Steppin Fetchit’ (Gotanda 21). Stepin Fetchit is the stage name of the American

comedian and film actor Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry. He is the first

black actor to receive a screen credit. He was known for acting negative

stereotypes of African Americans. However, he led a successful film career and

was the first black actor to be a millionaire. According to Josephine Lee, “the most

disturbing and powerful moments in the play are those when the Asian American

actors display a marked attraction for playing ‘Fetchits,’ and make the audiences

share with the characters the feeling of shame” (Seduction 100). Unfortunately,

performing stereotypic roles of Asians is one of the few opportunities available for

Vincent and Bradley if they want to work as actors, and this dilemma forms the

basis of their conflict in the play. Vincent wants to work even if it means that he

53

has to perform character like Sergeant Moto. Bradley, on the other hand, refusing

at least at the beginning of the play, to accept acting these humiliating roles and he

even blames Vincent for these roles:

BRADLEY. Vincent….All that self hate….where does it begin? Charley

Chop Suey…. You think every time you do one of these demeaning

roles, the only thing lost is your dignity…. Don't you see that every

time you do a portrayal like that millions of people in movie theatres

see it? Believe it. Every time you do an old stereotypic role just to pay

bills, someone has to pay for it − and it ain't you. No it is some Asian

kid innocently walking home. "Hey, it is a Chinaman gook!" "Rambo,

Rambo, Rambo!" You older actors, you ask to be understood, forgiven,

but you refuse to change. You have no sense of social responsibility.

(Gotanda 25- 26)

Although Bradley's accusations that Vincent's demeaning roles help deform

the Asian image in non-Asian eyes and incite the anti-Asian sentiments on-and-off

screen are true, but we cannot deny Vincent's insistence on the significance of his

unique existence under certain conditions (Shimakawa 117). Vincent realizes that

his career is built because of playing roles that many younger Asian American

actors consider them humiliating. Vorlicky notes that: “despite Vincent's high

profile in the community, he represents the negative stereotypes of the limited roles

54

for Asian American that the dominant culture perpetuates on and off screen” (192).

However, Bradley expresses how he admired Vincent and regarded him as a hero

when he was growing up:

BRADLEY: You know, Mr. Chang, when I was growing up you were sort

of my hero. No, really, you were. I mean, I'd be watching TV and

suddenly you'd appear in some old film or an old "Bonanza" or something.

And at first something you would always jerk inside. Whoa, what's this?

This is weird, like watching my own family on TV. (Gotanda 15)

This speech shows how Bradley and Asian American community regard the

existence of Vincent on TV. The figure of Vincent performing these stereotypic

roles is of great importance as it manifests the ability to be existed in a field

dominated by whites. At the end of the conversation, in which Bradley reveals how

he admired Vincent as his television hero, Vincent confesses that his hero was Fred

Astaire (Gotanda 15). Klaver notes that invariably each character regards “the

image of the white male celebrities as the best model to be followed, although

Bradley would surely protest this at least at the beginning of the play" (65). The

issue of the absence of a worthy Asian American model appears in characters’

conversation when Vincent tries to show his admire for a singer and when Bradley

compares Vincent’s nose to those of white male celebrities. When Vincent wants

to praise a Chinese-American singer he compares him to Frank Sinatra ‘A singer,

55

Larry Ching, he could croon like Frank Sinatra and better looking, too.’ (Gotanda

26) Also Bradley when he asks Vincent about whether his nose is the ‘original

one’ (Gotanda 11) he compares it to these of white male celebrities ‘You've had all

these different noses. Sinatra, Montgomery Clift, Troy Donahue ─ whatever was in

at the time. Sort of like the 7 noses of Dr. Lao…" that's what they said’ (Gotanda

11).

This issue of required facial features is clearly a stereotype of the white male

at any given time. This allows the play to bring up the issue of facial reconstruction

or as Bradley says ‘Cutting up your face to look more white’ (Gotanda 25) Klaver

notes that the issue of facial reconstruction is “rendered more intensely by the fact

that Vincent and Bradley are working in media culture where the white, male facial

features are required, so they have to imitate this face to continue their career"

(56). Perhaps, the issue of facial reconstruction is an important requirement to find

a job in the American entertainment industry, however, it extends to reach normal

people away from this industry like Bradley’s girlfriends ‘My old girlfriend used to

put scotch tape on her eyelids to get the double fold so she could look more “cau-

ca-sian.” My new girlfriend — she doesn’t mess around, she got surgery….’

(Gotanda 25). It is clear that actors and normal people are trying to adapt

themselves to the mainstream culture and to get over any obstacle that could

deprive them of good opportunities in life.

56

Vincent is aware that his career is built on acting houseboys and barbarian

roles and that he was even nominated for an Academy Award for "playing

caricatured Asian American roles" (Berson, Reading The West 269), however, he

is not ashamed for acting those roles and he tries to show his happiness and

satisfaction ‘You want to know the truth? I am glad I did it. Yes, you heard me

right. I'm glad I did it and I'm not ashamed, wanted to do it. And no one is going

to get an apology out of me. And in some small way it is a victory. Yes, a victory.

At least an Oriental was on screen acting, being seen. We existed’ (Gotanda 24-

25). Bradley objects to Vincent’s answer. He does not consider those roles as an

existence because he believes that Vincent humiliates and ‘prostitutes’ his soul

(Gotanda 26). Vincent replies to him saying ‘that's all there was Bradley’ (Gotanda

25). Vincent’s answer indicates that he feels deep inside that Bradley is right and

that his happiness is fake, however, his pride prevents him from telling the truth

especially in front of a younger person with limited experience in this industry.

Even though these stereotypic roles are familiar to the viewers and

unfavorable to the Asian and Asian American community, “the casting of the

Asian body is enough to ensure a kind of welcome disruption, an illicit pleasure

that sets up a key tension between stereotype and performer”. This justifies why

Vincent insists that the performance of ‘Chop Suey Circuit’ (Gotanda 25) by the

performers of the past generation is heroic, because their performance of these

57

demeaning roles “must be interpreted in the context of their historical position as

individuals lacking choices" (Josephine Lee, Seduction 101).

VINCENT. … there was no Asian American actor, and no Asian American

theaters. Just a handful of “orientals” who for some god forsaken wanted

to perform. Act. And we did. At church bazzars, community talent night,

and on the Chop Suey Circuit playing Chinatowns and Little Tokyos

around the country as hoofers, jugglers, acrobats, strippers ─ anything

we could for anyone who could watch. (Gotanda 25)

The play ends with the two characters having changed their "ideological

positions" (Chaudhuri 230). Both of them have been offered demeaning stereotypic

roles in the same science-fiction film. Surprisingly, Vincent refuses the role and

decides instead to go and work in an independent film by a Japanese American

director about a Japanese American family living in Sacramento before the war

‘Just as my childhood…. And my role. It's wonderful. I get to play my father’

(Gotanda 49). Bradley, on the other hand, has accepted the movie role, ‘Yang's

number one son. He’s half Chinese and half rock’ (Gotanda 49). Bradley accepts

this role as he begins to feel the lack of job opportunities in a culture that always

demeans any race beyond the white one. ‘I figure once I get there I can change it. I

will. Even if it's a bit. Just a small change, it's still something. And even if they

58

don't change it, they'll at least know how we feel and next time, may be next

time…’ (Gotanda 49-50). Dunbar notes that:

Shifting the focus from the ethnic community's internal issues to its

interaction with the outside, Yankee Dawg questions how a racial or

ethnic minority acquires visibility and voice in American culture.

Though the frame of reference here is Asian American, these issues of

visibility and self-definition are not only pertinent to other minorities,

but also to the dominant culture and the role it plays in fixing and

perpetuating stereotypes.

Gotanda suggests that Bradley is repeating Vincent’s life by accepting this

role as if nothing has changed and that the sacrifices that Vincent and his

generation made were invaluable. Although Vincent does not criticize Bradley,

Bradley tries to defend his attitude to justify his acceptance for this role ‘Look, if I

don’t take it then what happens? Some other jerk takes it and plays it like some

goddamned geek’ (49-50). Bradley even repeats Vincent’s words at the beginning

of the play to describe his acceptance of the stereotypic role ‘It’s a victory. Yes, a

victory’ (50). Gotanda’s view is not extremely pessimistic and this is clear when he

suggests that playing these humiliating roles show the brutal face of the American

entertainment industry and when he prefers to use an open ending that does not

indicate whether the mainstream culture will recognize Bradley’s claim or not.

59

BRADLEY. I’ll sit down and convince them to change it. I will. Even if

it’s a bit. Just a small change, it’s still something. And, even if they don’t

change it, they’ll at least know how we feel and next time, may be next

time…. (Gotanda 50)

Josephine Lee points out that the play gives us a possible alternative to

Hollywood, a community of theatre and film run by Asian Americans. Bradley's

initial success as an actor is enabled by acting roles in Asian American theaters and

independent filmmakers and their new recognition by critics, if not box offices.

But the play also suggests that such a community began years ago; Vincent

proudly tells how he and his dance partner were applauded by Anna May Wong

and Sessue Hayakawa. The play emphasizes that the Asian American community

“not only produced its own work, but also sees and values the performances of

Asian Americans differently” (The Seduction 101-102). Bradley believes in

something called Theatre Project of Asian America and he defends this project

saying that ‘Asian American theaters are where we do the real work, Mr. Chang’

(Gotanda 24) Vincent's response "puts Bradley's position in an embarrassingly

orientalist light" (Chaudhuri 228): ‘Stop calling me MR. Chang. It's Shigeo

Nakada. Asian American consciousness. Hah. You can't tell the difference between

a Chinaman and a Jap. I'm Japanese, didn't you know that? I changed my name

after the war. Hell, I wanted to work’ (Gotanda 24). Josephine Lee notes that by

60

creating characters as working actors who discuss their career, Philip Kan Gotanda

gives “some historical context that dominate the representation of Asians and

Asian Americans in American theater, film, and television” (The Seduction 98).

Vincent wants to work and he is ready to give any sacrifices to be existed in this

domain and each sacrifice leads to the other one. He accepts acting stereotypic

roles, he makes a plastic surgery to look like white actors and at the end he is

revealed to be Japanese. He changed his name because he realized that he will not

be welcomed because of the political circumstances between America and Japan.

When Vincent starts to give up his culture and his identity, he did not realize that

he is giving up every thing that connects him to this ethnic group and this includes

his responsibilities towards it or as Bradley describes it ‘prostitutes’ (Gotanda 26)

his soul.

Vincent's “magic word” (Chaudhuri 228) that he uses to justify all his

demeaning roles that he has accepted and played is ‘to work’ (Gotanda 24),

because he realized from the very beginning that the other choice available for

him, in case of refusing these roles, is to be unemployed. He even believes that

those roles have paved the way for the younger generations like Bradley to build

something more and that the younger generations owe a lot to him:

VINCENT. You, you with that holier-than thou look, trying to make me

feel ashamed. You wouldn't be here if it weren't for all the crap we had

61

put up with. We built the mountain, as small as it may be that you stand

on so proudly looking down at me. Sure, it's a mountain of Charley Chop

Suey's and slipper-toting geishas. But it is also filled with forgotten

moments of extraordinary wonder, artistic achievement (Gotanda 25-26).

Gotanda believes that Vincent’s defense is not a valid excuse, he states that:

“Personally, I don’t think it is an excuse. If an actor knows he or she is doing a role

that is, on some level, demeaning to Asians or is helping contribute to a climate of

anti-Asian sentiment in the country but willingly takes the role—that’s not good”

Gotanda also adds that these roles affects Asian American lives by making them

“misrepresenting in the media”, “easy targets” for racist acts, and being “shut out

of everything” like “political or cultural systems” (qtd. in Ito 180)

The play shows that Vincent and Bradley are talented actors who can act any

role convincingly; however, they are only offered demeaning stereotypic roles due

to their ethnic group. Both of them try to break these ethnic boundaries and show

their true identity by acting respected roles but they failed to get them “because of

the racism of the industrial system, not because of their inability to play difficult

roles (Josephine Lee, The Seduction 99). Underestimating Asian American talents

extends to reach the awards given to them for acting unimportant and humiliating

roles. Early on in the play, Bradley criticizes that the only roles available for

Asians are ‘waiters, Viet Cong killers, Chimpanzees, drug dealers ….’ (Gotanda

62

27) However, these roles are the only way to get an award. Bradley mocks winning

awards for these trivial, demeaning roles:

BRADLEY. I can't believe this business with the Asian American awards. I

mean it's a joke ─ there aren't enough decent roles for us in a year. What?

An award for the best Asian American actor in the role of a Vietnamese

killer. And now in the category of "best actress with 5 lines or less…."

That's all we get. Who're we kidding. (Gotanda 23)

In Yankee Dawg some conflicts, like the central generational conflict

between Vincent and Bradley, are usual themes in Asian American literature;

however, Yankee Dawg does not contain “any expected material objects of Asian

American life like chopsticks, sushi, or Japanese phrases. Rather, the set design

calls for fluidity and fragmentation”. Gotanda describes the set as being: "Minimal,

with a hint of fragmentation and distortion of perspective to allow for a subtle,

dream-like quality. Upstage, high-tech shoji screens for title and visual projections.

Set should allow for a certain fluidity of movement" (Gotanda 4). The play “moves

away from the traditional, linear structure … it is divided into short scenes, offset

by interludes--montages of dream fragments, film clips, and conversations. This

stylistic experimentation suggests an attempt to blur presumed realities and

definitions” (Dunbar).

63

Gotanda utilizes monologues and soliloquies to precede and follow

dialogues. Vorlicky points out that during these monologues “each man speaks

before imagined individuals or groups; these different listeners elicit personal traits

that often differ from those suggested in shared conversations” He adds that:

“when soliloquizing, each man expresses his inner feelings, thoughts and struggles.

Because Gotanda shows us the man's life outside of their immediate relationships,

the spectator has an opportunity to understand the circumstances that influence

their relationship” (190-191).

In addition to using “a series of elaborate colloquies” and “dramatic

monologues” (Kihan Lee, Yankee Dawg 332), Gotanda uses dream sequences to

reveal his characters’ inner fears and anxieties due to racism in this industry.

Josephine Lee notes that both Vincent and Bradley dream of their bodies being

consumed in this industry, “suggesting not only any actor's nightmare of selling his

body as a product, but the Asian American actor's specific anxiety over playing

demeaning and humiliating roles to be familiar to mainstream white audiences”

(The Seduction 105).

The play closes with a fervent outcry (Kihan Lee, Yankee Dawg 332) or a

claim for the American mainstream society. Vincent gradually drops his accent and

begins to perform with ‘great passion’ (Gotanda 50) the same words he said at the

beginning of the play in Sergeant Moto scene, turning them into a “moving

64

revelation of personal frustration” (Josephine Lee, The Seduction 105), why can't

you hear what I'm saying? Why can't you see me as I really am? (Gotanda 50)

Kihan Lee believes that this may be “an apt battle cry for all Asian American

writers across different literary genres who must endure and negotiate the

inequities of a still discrimination-ridden society to finally find their voices and,

more important, have their voices heard" (Yankee Dawg 332). Josephine Lee

suggests that moving from “stereotypical role to revelatory statement, Vincent

places his acting ability in the service of creating a different persona for the Asian

American on stage, transforming a once stereotypical role into a dignified,

sympathetic character” (The Seduction 105).

She adds that the ending suggests “a new fusion of the self and the role

whereby the Asian American actor is freed to inform his stage presence with

offstage experience” (The Seduction 105). Vincent finally decides to turn down

stereotypic, humiliating role ‘Yang, the evil one’ (Gotanda 49) in favor of working

in a low-budget film made by an Asian American director, a Japanese American

history ‘where I get to play my father’ (Gotanda 49).

The play's ending shows the limited opportunities available for Asian

male actors in the American entertainment industry. If they want to continue

working in their career, they have to choose between acting decent roles in low-

budget Asian American independent films, where most of their viewers will be the

65

Asian American community, or “to choose highly visible and well-paying but

despicably stereotypical roles in Hollywood movies” (Josephine Lee, The

Seduction 105). Although the ending leaves Bradley's career vague, he accepts

desperately the monstrous role of Yang's son, ‘half Chinese and half rock,’

(Gotanda 49) in a high-paying science fiction film. Vincent sees himself thirty-five

years ago in Bradley who is full of enthusiasm, hope and determination. His refusal

of the stereotypic role indicates that he begins to realize and identify “his ethnic

identity, which he had consciously negated in his ongoing pursuit of the American

dream” (Kihan Lee, Yankee Dawg 332), and could be regarded as an indirect

confession that he regrets playing demeaning stereotypic roles in the past and now

he wants to reconcile with himself and his culture to find the inner peace. On the

contrary, Bradley accepts the role because he begins to feel the lack of job

opportunities, like Vincent at the beginning of his career, hoping that one day he

could change these stereotypic beliefs. Also, he begins to appreciate the great

sacrifices that the older generations of Asian and Asian American actors made to

prove themselves and how they struggle to be existed in a racist culture that

believes only in the rights of the whites.

Although Gotanda’s main characters are Asians facing problems because of

their ethnicity, however, their problems are similar to those of other ethnic groups

whether in America or other countries and this shows the universality of themes in

66

Gotanda’s works. The history of the entertainment industry in America shows how

each ethnic group has its specific distorted, stereotypic image. Native Americans,

for example, are usually portrayed as primitives and aggressive, African

Americans as drug dealers and gangsters, Latino and Hispanic Americans as

criminals and illegal immigrants, and Arab Americans as savages and terrorists.

Each ethnic group in American is victimized and has its prepared demeaning

stereotypic image regardless of their contributions to the American welfare and

prosperity.

Gotanda uses the character of Vincent to symbolize the older generations of

Asian American actors with their dreams, sacrifices and frustrations, while Bradley

is used to symbolize the enthusiastic younger generations of Asian American

actors who hope to make difference and show the true identity of Asians and Asian

Americans away from the distorted image formed by the American media and

reinforced by the roles that Asian American actors play. With the acceptance of the

stereotypic role at the end of the play, Bradley proves that Vincent fails in paving

the way for the younger generations to be offered respectable and non-stereotypic

roles as he thought but he rather makes the matter worse, because Vincent’s old

demeaning stereotypic roles helped strengthen the deformed image of Asians.

Consequently, it is clear that after all these years the new generations of Asian

American actors are offered the same stereotypic roles to be familiar to the

67

American viewers regardless of their talents. This suggests that the older

generations failed in achieving their dreams and their goals and made them

difficult for younger generations. This also indicates that the new generations are

revolving in the same vicious circle with no hope of any change unless they begin

to pay attention to independent filmmakers and Asian American theatre companies

which are the reasons for Bradley’s initial recognition by the critics and box office

because Asian American community produces and appreciates its own works and

actors. Gotanda also offers another solution to show the real image of Asians. He

suggests that Asian and Asian American actors should use these humiliating

stereotypic roles as a weapon and a source of inspiration to show the dark side of

the entertainment industry in America that only believes in the superiority of the

white race and disdains other races.

68

Chapter III

Elizabeth Wong’s Kimchee and Chitlins

Elizabeth Wong was born in South Gate, California and raised in Chinatown

to working-class Chinese immigrant parents. Wong experienced many hardships in

her childhood. Her father died when she was only five years old and that forced her

mother to work multiple jobs to support the two children. These difficult times led

Wong to immerse herself in reading and studying. Her escape through books

inspired her to learn more about a particular role model: Anna May Wong, the first

Chinese-American actress. Through studying hard, Wong finished her high school,

received a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Southern

California, and entered an M.F.A. program in playwriting at New York University

(Manning 317).

Wong learned early in life to “internalize demeaning stereotypes of media-

created Asians”. As an adolescent growing up in Chinatown, she kept herself away

from the community in which she lived as she felt that there is no common interest

between her and that community. After completing her undergraduate degree in

journalism at the University of Southern California in 1980, Wong continued to

write about issues of cultural self-denial. She felt that she is underestimated

69

because of “her Chinese ancestry and she was unable to exploit her origin as an

empowering means of bringing a unique perspective to her reporting”. While she

was working as field producer at KNXTTV news in Los Angeles, where she

remained for three years before accepting a reporting position first with the San

Diego Tribune and subsequently the Hartford Courant, she acknowledged feeling

resentful when she was assigned to cover stories about Asians. According to

Kaplan “it was Asian American theatre that taught Elizabeth Wong to embrace her

ethnic heritage as a source of strength rather than an embarrassing flaw”. She was

greatly influenced by the works of Asian American playwrights. Wong explained

that seeing David Henry Hwang's FOB and Wakako Yamauchi's And The Soul

Shall Dance, plays that treated Asian American themes with dignity, were strong

motives in enabling her to appreciate her origins. After eight years of working as a

news reporter, Wong worked as a journalist; a job that required telling facts

without adding her comments or point of views to them, especially to those

influenced by her personal cultural heritage. At the same time, Wong came under

the influence of several leading American theatre artists and educators. Leaving the

Hartford Courant, she moved to New Haven and devoted her time to learn

playwriting at the Yale School of Drama. The experience encouraged her a lot.

Without “a single theatrical credit to her name, she applied to New York

University's graduate playwriting program, feeling somehow sure that theatre was

70

the suitable artistic medium that could liberate her as a writer and that New York

City was the place where this would happen”. In order to be accepted into the

program, she was required to submit an original script, something she has never

before written. The result was The Aftermath of a Chinese Banquet (1988). With

the success of this play; she was accepted into NYU'S Tisch School of the Arts,

where she completed her master of fine arts in playwriting in 1991. It was there

that she wrote two of her most popular works, Letters to a Student Revolutionary

(1989), about the Tiananmen Square Massacre5, and Kimchee and Chitlins (1990),

about conflicts between Korean immigrants and African Americans in Brooklyn.

At that time her playwriting career began to flourish. Several events returned

Wong to West Coast home in 1992, among them was the death of her

grandmother, with whom she had a strong relationship. At the same time, the

Asian Theatre Workshop at the Mark Taper Forums invited Wong to perform a

reading of Kimchee and Chitlins. The reading, coming as it did mere weeks after

race rioting in Los Angeles caused the destruction of over two thousand Korean-

owned shops, in turn brought her to the attention of Disney Studios in Hollywood,

which invited Wong to become one of three writing fellows for its Touchstone

Television Division. Wong remained with Touchstone in 1995, becoming a staff

writer for the short-lived All-American Girl (1994-95) starring Margaret Cho, the

first and the only television comedy series ever to revolve around an Asian

71

American family. When this show was cancelled, she became the mentor of

younger playwrights. She had previously taught playwriting at East West Players'

David Henry Hwang Institute (1993-94) in Los Angeles. She joined the faculties of

the University of California at Santa Barbra and her alma mater, the University of

Southern California, as associate professor of playwriting (Kaplan, Elizabeth

Wong 347-349).

Among Wong's famous works is a three-act play China Doll ((1991) which

narrates the life of the America's first Asian film star, Anna May Wong, a media

figure with whom Wong shares common origins. Anna May grew up in

Chinatown, Los Angeles, and Wong draws an immediate parallel, "I can really

relate to her because she lived in Chinatown and found she couldn't relate….she

was more interested in climbing onto a bus, just like me, and going to movies on

Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard” (qtd. in Uno, Elizabeth Wong 265). The play is a

celebration of Elizabeth Wong's love for the cinema, and a commentary on the

racism of the movie industry. In Kimchee and Chitlins, Wong chronicles the social

problems and cultural differences through the lives of her characters. She states

that:

as an Asian I have experienced not being served by a white person in

a restaurant. I also know what it's like to be spit on by a Chinese man

for walking down the street of Chinatown holding the hand of a white

72

boyfriend. Kimchee and Chitlins deals with that type of deep-seated

racial prejudice which we all have" (qtd. in Uno, Elizabeth Wong

265).

Wong also wrote a musical for young audiences, The magical Bird (2007)

which is inspired by a Filipino folktale. The play had its own premiere at the

Honolulu Theatre for Youth that commissioned the play in association with

centennial of Filipino immigration to Hawaii. Other notable plays include The

Amazing Adventures of the Marvelous Monkey King (2007), winner of the

Mississippi Theatre Festival; The Lovelife of Eunuch (2004) a tale of Imperial

China. In 2003, Wong received a commission from the Kennedy Center to write an

opera libretto for her children’s theatre adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy

Prince. Elizabeth Wong latest work is a play about ancestry The DNA Trail: A

Genealogy of Short Plays about Ancestry, Identity and Utter Confusion. For The

DNA Trail, Silk Road Theatre Project commissioned seven diverse, contemporary

acclaimed playwrights to take a genealogical DNA test and write their responses to

the results of these tests. The writers are Philip Kan Gotanda, Velina Hasu

Houston, David Henry Hwang, Jamil Khoury, Shishir Kurup, Lina Patel, and

Elizabeth Wong (BWW News Desk).

Elizabeth Wong has received numerous honors and serves on the board of

many theatre organizations. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild

73

West, Pen West, the Circle Repertory Theatre Playwrights Project, and the Mark

Taper Forum's Mentor Playwright Program, she has received fellowships from

Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, and Catawba College. She received the playwright

Forum Award from Theatre Works IN Colorado Springs (1990) and a Margo Jones

New Play Citation (1992) for Letters to a Student Revolutionary and the

Association for Theatre in Higher Education's Jane Chambers Award for the

abbreviated version of China Doll (1995). Wong serves on the advisory board of

theatre Emory in Atlanta along with distinguished playwrights Wole Soyinka,

Wendy Wasserstein, and Alfred Uhry. In 1998, Wong's papers were established in

the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives at the University of California at

Santa Barbra's Davidson Library (Kaplan, Elizabeth Wong 349).

Wong’s Kimchee and Chitlins, a second full-length drama, is another

important work that reflects her journalistic background. Written in 1990, the play

explores the conflicts between African Americans and Korean Americans in New

York City. In this play Wong examined the economic relationships and cultural

misunderstandings that provided the stimulus for the 1990 boycott of Korean

greengrocers by black communities in Brooklyn, New York. The play received its

first reading at New York City's Primary Stages in June 1991 in the aftermath of

the Brooklyn conflicts. When it was read at the Mark Taper Forum in May 1992,

the Los Angeles Times called it a "prophetic drama” (Uno, Elizabeth Wong 265)

74

because it turned out to be a prophecy of the race riots in Los Angeles

commemorated in the Korean community which occurred barely ten months later

on April 29, 1992 (Kaplan, Elizabeth Wong 352). With Kimchee and Chitlins,

Wong made several innovative contributions to the field of Asian American drama.

According to Uno:

Asian American playwrights have never feared to address issues of

interracial conflict, whether between Asian American characters and

whites (R.A. Shiomi’s Uncle Tadao, Philip Kan Gotanda’s Sisters

Matsumoto, and Genny Lim’s Paper Angels … or Asian American

characters and non-Asian characters of color (Velina Hasu Houston’s

Asa Ga Kimashita, Gotanda’s Wash). In Kimchee and Chitlins,

however, Wong places overt antagonism between an Asian American

population and a non-Caucasian community of color at the center of

its dramatic action. Wong also broke theatrical ground with her

depiction of an Asian American community that was of neither

Chinese nor Japanese descent. Though protagonist Suzie Seeto is

herself Chinese American, Wong’s central positioning of Korean and

Korean American characters predated the work of Korean American

writers such as Harold Byun, Diana Son, Rob Shinn, and Sung Rno,

75

playwrights who came to prominence during the mid- to late 1990s.

(Elizabeth Wong 352)

In Kimchee and Chitlins, Elizabeth Wong looks at a Korean American

grocer, Mak, who finds himself in a direct confrontation with black people in his

neighborhood. Wong explores many issues that go beyond the Asian American

experience and can be applied to all American ethnicities such as "problems of

interracial discord too often culminating in violence, the demeaning use of

stereotypes, the media’s white bias that marginalizes all ethnicity, and the loss of

cultural heritage in those who assimilate”. Wong believes that the solution to most

of these troubles is to pay attention to the cultural differences among people of all

ethnic groups. She calls people to do their best to go beyond these ethnic

differences and explore the person himself regardless of his ethnicity (Abbotson,

Thematic Guide 42). Wong examines the “media representation and distortion” of

a conflict between Korean Americans and African Americans in New York City in

the early 1990s and how the media are used by both groups. Although the play is

based on a specific incidence of intercommunal violence, Wong does not use “a

purely realist mode but she employs various theatrical devices to dramatize her

disillusion with any concepts of objectivity. To the end she employs a black and

Korean chorus, and her production notes stress the symbolic character of the play

and the need to get rid of all the props” (Schlote, Elizabeth Wong 996).

76

In her semi-autobiographical play, Kimchee and Chitlins, Elizabeth Wong

explores the afroasian encounters in America and the misuse of media by both of

them. She also sheds light on some other issues that relate to racism, stereotypes,

and cultural misunderstandings. The play centered on a Korean storeowner, Grocer

Mak, whose African American customers in the neighborhood accuse him of

treating them disrespectfully and claiming that he attacked a Haitian woman,

Matilda Duvet, in his store. The play's other central figure is Suzie Seeto. She is

ambitious, Chinese American television reporter who is sent to cover the conflict

with a strong motive to know the truth behind it. Suzie gets many different stories

of the same event throughout the play. It is clear that this experience transformers

her from a naïve person to an experienced one.

Being a Chinese American, Suzie is always assigned to cover stories about

minor groups and that annoys her so she addresses the audiences ‘I hate covering

minority issues’ (Wong 34) and she complains to her boss Mark Thompson who

always sends her on purpose to cover these issues ‘If it Asians, Latinos, Blacks,

Jews, … I am your man’ (Wong 9). At this moment the reader could feel that

Wong is writing her own autobiography when she was a journalist as she used to

face the same problem; reporting news about minorities without adding her own

opinions. Once Suzie arrived to the place of the protest, Nurse Ruth Betty thought

that she is Korean and asks her to go away ‘Go away, Korean girl’ (Wong 11) ‘tell

77

teevee to give us an African-American reporter’ (Wong 12). Suzie begins to

investigate the reasons of the protest. The African Americans claim that Mak, the

Korean grocer, has attacked a Haitian woman, Matilda Duvet, and now she is in a

critical case in the hospital. On the other side, Mak is denying these accusations

telling Suzie a different story.

Although Wong is an Asian American playwright, she tries to be unbiased to

the Asian side by using the chorus technique. At the very beginning of the play the

reader is introduced to Suzie Seeto, a Chinese American television reporter,

looking “longingly at the anchor chair” (Wong 5) hoping for a promotion. Then a

chorus, composed of the black chorus and the Korean chorus, appeared behind her

to comment on every incident throughout the play. Surprisingly, both of them have

different explanations of the same incident and this gives balance to the play as

Wong does not tend to tell us which side is telling the truth till the end of the play.

Wong’s use of the black American and Korean choruses, who constantly disagree

as they comment on the action, deftly presents the “warring subcultures" between

the two ethnic groups (Abbotson, Thematic Guide 47).

The play opens with “a child's beginning". Suzie Seeto begins to narrate her

first impression when she saw an African American man for the first time and this

was her "first-ever awareness of racial difference”. She comments on the situation

‘it was no big deal’ (Wong 5), and then the choruses start to comment on this

78

experience. While the Korean chorus describes her as ‘petrified’ and ‘scared’

(Wong 5), the black chorus objects and describes her as being ‘calm’, ‘nonplussed’

and ‘friendly’ (Wong 5). However the Korean chorus insists on its opinion and

adds that she describes the African American man as a ‘boogeyman’ (Wong 6).

From the very outset of the dramatic action, therefore, oppositional interpretations

are offered by the two choruses. “These often-irreconcilable versions of truth drive

the subsequent dramatic action toward its irreconcilable conclusion” (Elizabeth

Wong 352-353).

Wong keeps the balance of the play by creating good and bad characters

from both sides. She created the aggressive and intolerable characters who

intensify the conflict between African Americans and Korean Americans like

Nurse Ruth Betty, Reverend Carter, and Willie Mak and the good and tolerable

ones like Barber Brown, Grocer Mak, and Soomi Mak, whose attitudes towards the

conflict indicate the possibility of making good and valuable friendships between

the two ethnic groups. Also, Wong shows how people react in different ways to

these events even if they belong to the same ethnic group. For example Willie and

Soomi, Mak’s nephew and niece, show how people have different responses in the

quest for a solution to their social problems. Abbotson argues that while Willie

turns to violence and threats people with his gun, “Soomi offers to nonviolently

counterprotest by singing songs and displaying a sign stating “Yellow is

79

Beautiful”—an ironic echo of the black American slogan of the 1960s”. He adds

that Wong suggests that none of these responses are valid, and offers another

option. Mak and Barber Brown, fellow businessmen, have a friendly relationship,

but they are not true friends and have not invited each other into their homes. “That

kind of close, personal interaction, in the end, is what Wong suggests is necessary

if the community is to go beyond mistrust and become unified” (Thematic Guide

47).

The character of the African American activist Reverend Lonnie Olson

Carter, who is an experienced actor in the world of New York City race relations,

represents “one of Wong's major literary influences, African American and its

elements of protest and rebellion”. The staging of the African American

protagonists as “the dominant and politically active characters of the play not only

reflects vital periods of African American history but also locates them as essential

parts of American history” (Scholte, Greenwood 996). Reverend Carter is one of

those who believed that African Americans are mistreated by the white people

because of their ethnicity ‘racist America has stripped us of our dignity’ (Wong

62). He believes that Koreans are doing the same thing and they are also taking job

opportunities from them ‘those people over there are taking advantage of our

captivity in America to become rich’ (Wong 19). He tries many times to draw the

attention of the media for the boycotts of the grassroots movement but he failed.

80

The protest was a great chance for him to grab its attention and also to take

revenge from Koreans and make them a scapegoat for all the sufferings that

African Americans face ‘A black man in America can never be a racist. To be

racist, you have to have power. And that, I most certainly do not have. I may be

bigoted. I may be prejudiced. But I am not a racist’ (Wong 57).

The temptation of media is an important issue in the play. Each side is trying

to use them to prove that he is the right one. When Suzie reports to Tara that

‘Things get pretty quite once the cameras goes away’ (Wong 66), she refers to the

bad effect of the existence of media among minorities who are always

discriminated and ignored, and once they find the chance to be heard, they may

exaggerate and make the matters worse. Barber Brown and Grocer Mak insult each

other when the camera is on, but when it is off they stop. Barber Brown believes

that media have a great influence on him, ‘All the cameras and the excitement and

the meetings, the feeling of being bigger than just a nobody barber’ (Wong 65).

Reverend Carter describes it as ‘media circus’ (Wong 73) that could put some

trivial events to spotlight ‘History, Suzie, has often been triggered by such trivial

events. Someone in Montgomery, Alabama, orders a black woman to give up seat

in a bus. Mahatma Gandhi created a free India all because he got thrown off a

train’ (Wong 73). However, these two historical events show the bright side of

media as it could be used to bring benefits for some people and draw people’s

81

attention to important issues. At the arrival of Suzie to the protest scene, she finds

that Reverend Carter is insulting Mak and describes him as a ‘Korean coward’

(Wong 14) and asking him to go back to Korea ‘go away, Korean monkey’ (Wong

16) and when Suzie asks him to repeat what he said for the camera he repeats

happily ‘Go back to Korea, Korean monkey!’ (Wong 16) Hearing this racial slur

from Revered Carter is a great shock to Suzie because a religious man is supposed

to be reasonable and wise in these critical moments not to intensify the situation,

however, her boss is happy to hear this although he denies his happiness.

MARK THOMPSON: That’s incredible. He actually called that guy a

Korean monkey. Amazing, just amazing… I don’t mean to

sound relieved. But, I mean, this time, the white man isn’t part of

the lynch party. It’s all so strange.” (Wong 19)

Mark Thompson claims that the whole crisis has nothing to do with the

white man because he is not one of the fighting sides. However, the white man is

involved in this situation but in an indirect way through media. Media are managed

and controlled by white people, and for their benefit they exploit this chaotic

situation by increasing the gap between the two sides and make it difficult to get

them reconciled to go on. This is clear when Tara, Suzie’s white colleague, deleted

some parts of Suzie’s interview with the Asian side and made Suzie appear as if

she supports the black side. When Suzie wants to correct the situation by having an

82

interview with Matilda Duvet, Mark suspends her. Mark suspends Suzie because

he believes that since media are a money-making business, Suzie’s story is no

longer salable or attractive to the viewers even if she intends to reveal the truth.

Nurse Ruth Betty is another African American character who suffers from

racial discrimination and finds in the black boycotting a good chance for her to feel

that she is strong even if this means to victimize other innocent people. Wong uses

Ruth Betty’s character to show how cultural differences and underestimating of

minorities could result in horrible misunderstandings among them. Nurse Ruth

Betty feelings of being inferior started in her childhood, continues till she grew up

and extends even to her name. In her interview with Suzie she narrates her

childhood experience about what her grandfather told her about the traditional dish

of the blacks; chitlins

Nurse Ruth Betty: Chitlins is our history. It come about because the slave master

took the best part of the pig, and left the slaves with the shit. Life is like

chitlins, he would say. Someone gives you shit, but you make a banquet out

of it (Wong 67).

This feeling of inferiority continues with Ruth Betty until she grows up. When

Suzie asks her about having two first names:

NURSE Ruth BETTY. … I have two first names because I have no last name. I

reject that name. I won’t even speak it. That name was the name of my

83

great- great-grandmother’s slave master. I don’t know what my real

family name is. I don’t know what tribe I’m from. I don’t have any family

history… And you can’t get or give a better reason to boycott than that…

(Wong 78)

The feelings of inferiority combined with her cultural misunderstanding

accumulated in her subconscious and appear in dealing with Grocer Mak. The play

suggests that the slave master of the past has replicated himself in Grocer Mak, but

this time Ruth Betty is the strong side and this helps her take revenge from him.

Nurse Ruth Betty regards Mak as rude and insulting because he does not touch her

hand when taking money or look her in the eye: ‘I've been putting money into that

Korean man's pocket for five years, and he can't even look me in the eye when I

open my purse. Once, I held out my five dollars, good honest money, and he

refused to take it from my black hand. Do I look like I have a social disease?’

(Wong 22-23) Because of Ruth Betty’s feeling of inferiority and her unawareness

of the Korean culture, she misunderstands Mak’s behavior towards her and she has

no idea that his behavior indicates deep respect and proper behavior according to

the Korean culture. Mak addresses the audiences trying to defend himself giving a

reasonable explanation for his behavior: ‘I show them plenty of respect….I don't

look in their eyes. I don't touch them in false sign of friendly greeting. This is our

way. The Korean way’ (Wong 42).

84

Both sides refuse to listen to each other or to contemplate the situation from

the outside. They can not see that since they are minorities, they have a lot of

things in common. Both of them are mistreated, stereotyped, underpaid, and can

not get a bank loan to start their own business. However when they get a chance to

talk, they start mocking and insulting each other like when Ruth Betty mocks

Mak’s English:

NURSE RUTH BETTY. Is this guy speaking English? Sounds like gibberish

to me? What’s the matter? Can’t you speak English? (Wong 14)

Minorities in America do not share humiliated treatment or bad conditions

only but they also share some happy and comic moments. In the citizenship test of

Willie Mak, he complains that the test was ‘so hard’ and needs ‘much brain work’

(Wong 67), however he passed. When Willie looked around the courtroom to make

the pledge of allegiance, he saw ‘all the crying faces of happiness’ (Wong 67).

Willie comments on this moment by saying ‘We are all so different, but we all

have crying faces of happiness’ (Wong 67). There is a comic sharing moment in

the play when Ruth Betty, Soomi, and Suzie begin to discuss the issue of their

facial features and the hair styles they dream of. Each one of them begins to narrate

her childhood experience about her attempts to look like the blonde girls in their

classes or those in the magazines. Each one of them desires to look like blondes

‘with perky noses and blue eyes’ (Wong 41) and escape her own ethnical

85

appearances as they think that ‘blondes have more fun’ (Wong 41). This indicates

that minorities share some experiences and have common attitudes towards some

issues and it is evident in Suzie’s conflicts with her white boss Mark Thompson as

they have nothing to share.

Suzie Seeto is opposite to her boss Mark Thompson who prefers a burger to

a dim sum and a fork to chopsticks and who can also order dinner in ‘perfect

Thailandese’ (Wong 67) and is ‘too Asian’ (Wong 62) to suit Suzie's taste in

men. She is less than thrilled at the prospect of covering the boycott of Key Chun

Mak's grocery led by black activist Reverend Lonnie Carter. Kaplan notes that the

assignment forces her “to confront racism in her colleagues and her boss, in the

black boycotters and the Koreans who defend their business, and, most

importantly, in herself” (Elizabeth Wong 353). She finally is brought face-to-face

with her responsibility towards her Asian American community upon witnessing

four African American boys beating a Vietnamese youth with a baseball bat as

they think that he is a Korean. As she records dispassionately the event for the

nightly news, she states that:

I was too busy, too preoccupied with disassociating myself from that

squirming weak, yellow boy on the ground. Coolly, I hid myself

behind my profession, thoroughly brainwashed by my complete-and-

utter certainty that I could not and would not be hurt… because I was

86

NOT like that kid. Those black boys with their baseball bat shattered

my beautiful delusion once and forever. For if I wasn't yellow, then

what color did I think I was? (Wong 82)

The black and Korean choruses chant in union, whispering, ‘The boogeyman

is here. Inside you. Inside me…. Make the boogeyman go away. Make the

boogeyman go away’ (Wong 83). That boogeyman who appeared in the very first

scene of the play while narrating Suzie's childhood first experience when she saw

her first black face, reappears at the play's conclusion to show her “the distasteful

and inevitable truth from which she has long tried to hide” (Kaplan, Elizabeth

Wong 353). The play suggests that the meaning of the boogeyman at the beginning

of the play is completely different from that at the end. The boogeyman at the

beginning symbolizes her natural fear of the other or the stranger whom she does

not know but at the end of the play this ‘bogeyman’ (Wong 83) has replicated itself

inside her to suggest her fear to confront herself and to realize that she is different

and belongs to the underestimated minorities. It is the truth that she tries to ignore

many times by hiding herself behind her profession and acting the role of a

professional and an unbiased reporter. Wong seems to suggest that “neutralizing

the boogeyman could be accomplished through the deliberate invention of a

meaningful truth” (Kaplan, Elizabeth Wong 354).

87

Among Suzie's numerous conflicts with Mark Thompson is their

disagreement over whether the media are entitled to reduce the intense of news that

are already agitating. “If, as Thomson believes, the media are obliged to render

information that could be classified as dangerous as palatable instead, it follows

that the media are further empowered to manufacture a truth empowered to heal, as

the conclusion of Kimchee and Chitlins seems to suggest”. Suzie addresses the

audience to tell what media should do as she believes and her opinion is opposite

to that of her boss: ‘I believe in facts. Gather up enough facts, and they add up to a

decision, an action, even a revelation. I'm not in this business for the glamour or

the money…I'm in it to make a difference. To ensure fairness and civility in the

world’ (Wong 34). To that end, the play is performed with two endings, one

immediately following the other. In the first ending, grocer Mak, unable to

overcome his financial crisis caused by the boycott prepares to sell his grocery, a

business he has run for over ten years. Though barber Brown sympathizes with

grocer Mak, each one is accusing the other of having failed him (Kaplan, Elizabeth

Wong 353-354).

GROCER MAK. I thought you were my friend, why didn't you teach me

to be a businessman in America?

BARBER BROWN. Why didn't you ask me for help?

GROCER MAK. Why didn't you help me to understand?

88

BARBER BROWN. Why didn't you help me understand?

GROCER MAK. You stay with your people. I stay with mine. (Wong

83-84)

The actors maneuver into position after the manner of images on a

rewinding videotape to replay the scene. In the instant replay, Mak’s and Brown’s

dialogue changes completely: “both men acknowledge that in order to make peace,

they must break bread together. In this case, they agree to share a feast of the

pungent kimchee and chitlins of the play’s title that represent their cultures’ shared

qualities”. When the curtain falls Suzie remarks, ‘just goes to show… the best

stories are invented’ (Wong 85), thereby reinforcing Wong's position that if truth

can be artificially constructed to create conflicts and find good stories for media'

sake, it is advisable to be use it to make peace among people (Kaplan, Elizabeth

Wong 354).

Wong succeeds in dealing with serious problems in a humorous way without

sacrificing the significance and the essence of her issues, and this is clear

throughout the play. Although the play could be described as “sad” and

“disappointing,” it is undeniable that Wong's sense of humor was successfully used

to make “parallel to the sad moments and made balance in the plot of the play”

(Kaplan, Elizabeth Wong 354). Elizabeth Kim believes that Wong’s play boldly

treats the issue with “candor, exposing racial misunderstanding and bigotry on both

89

sides. To Wong’s credit, the play’s potentially explosive charge is defused by its

underlying humor and compassionate portrayal of characters of both races” (The

Facts 39).

The commercial breaks in the play give Wong a good opportunity to

confront the audiences about her own boogeyman, “using humor to name aloud the

secret prejudices many people harbor”. In a commercial break, Tara Sullivan

instructs the white audiences on how to avoid feeling resentful around black

people: ‘Just say, 'Hey bro' whas' up' and give 'em a high five. And all your fears

will disappear… like magic’ (Wong 40-41). In the midst of slinging insults at each

other, the Black Chorus, carried away by emotion and confusion, yells, ‘Black

nigger!’ (Wong 59) at the Koreans, who, just as wound up, respond by shouting,

‘Yellow nigger!’(Wong 59) Upon immediate reflection, the Black Chorus

hurriedly corrects itself, ‘Well, you know what I mean," as the Koreans wondered

aloud, "Did we say that right?’ (Wong 59) The Black Chorus justifications of the

Korean American behaviors and the Korean American interpretations of the

African American gang bangers and Haitian immigrants “evoke laughter”.

Although both of them “exaggerate in his attitudes and misunderstandings toward

the other, both have some truth in them” (Kaplan, Elizabeth Wong 354 -355).

Toward the end of act 2, after the opposing sides agree to talk about their

differences, the potential for a storybook ending is undercut when the mediation

90

session ‘ended up on the floor and in the aisles, taking pot shots at each other…this

first-ever meeting has degenerated into fist fighting, and spilled out into the street’

(Wong 81). At that time Suzie is attempting to cover the story and protect herself

at the same time (Kaplan, Elizabeth Wong 348).

Nonetheless, at the end of the play, the visionary title of the play remains a

“chimera”. While the combination of the traditional dish of the blacks, Chitlins

(pig intestine), with the Korean cabbage dish Kimchee “proves a winning recipe

for some characters, it is not a cure for all ills of communal conflicts”. Wong tries

to explore and counter the “biased media representations, throughout the play

Suzie provides the audiences with contextual information concerning the potential

causes of the economic differences between Korean and African Americans and

their respective and often traumatic histories” (Sholte, The Greenwood 996- 997).

The title is named after the traditional dishes of Koreans and Blacks as part

of their heritage and identity. The possibility of unification is raised by the

probable friendship between Brown and Mak. Mak gives Brown some kimchee to

help cure his sinus problem, but Brown finds that the kimchee alone just makes

him sneeze. However, he discovers that if he mixes the kimchee with his chitlins,

he has a tasty meal that clears his sinuses ‘I was eating your kimchee. I was

sneezing my head off. Then for no reason, I put some of that kimchee into my

91

chitlins and wouldn't you know, it tasted good, AND it cleared up my sinuses’

(Wong 25). Abbotson points out that the symbolism in this is obvious:

if each side can overcome its deeply held prejudices and join hands

with the other, together they can create a stronger, more effective

community. But when Brown offers the true hand of friendship by

inviting Mak into his home for dinner at the close, Suzie points out

that such an idealistic ending has only been invented, leaving it for

those watching to make it a reality. (Thematic Guide 47)

In their contest to speak and be heard in media, each group is trying to

defend his attitude. Throughout the play each chorus defends its color, while Suzie

tends to be impartial and to appear as a professional reporter, she even shows no

sympathy towards the Asian side. Even her boss, Mark Thompson, realizes this ‘I

like Suzie. But there’s nothing exotic, nothing Asian about her’ (Wong 34). When

she was tricked by her jealous rival, Tara, who deleted important parts from her

interview with the Asian side. The Asian chorus begins to blame her ‘You traitor…

You buried us like kimchee’ (Wong 52) while the African chorus praises her as

they thought that she supports them ‘You helped us. You treated us right. You told

the truth’ (Wong 52). Reverend Carter believes that Suzie has ‘showed her true

color’ (Wong 56) and supports his people so he wants to repay her ‘You help us, I

help you, that’s the way it works … we like to repay the people who work with us’

92

(Wong 55) so he gives her the address of Matilda Duvet in a paper. Suzie refuses

the paper not because of her responsibility towards the yellow color but because of

her ethical values ‘You don’t have me in your pocket, sir. I’m fair and impartial…’

(Wong 56)

In a conversation between Suzie and her boss, Mark accuses Reverend

Carter of being racist. Suzie’s answer is extremely unpredictable and it has some

indications. She quotes Reverend Carter’s words ‘people of color can’t be racist. It

implies power, which we don’t have’ (Wong 63). From Suzie’s answer it is clear

that she finds some truth in Revered Carter’s attitude. When she uses the word

‘we’ (Wong 63), it is obvious that she begins to feel that she belongs to the

minorities or the colored people who are always underestimated and stereotyped.

This is her first step to be aware of her ethnicity. She begins to move from the state

of self-denial to that of self discovery.

Towards the end of act II, Suzie faces a very crucial moment in her life

when she comes to the ultimate moment to reveal her true color. While she was

covering the mediator’s session, which is supposed to make peace between the

both sides, she witnessed four black kids beating a Vietnamese kid as they think he

is a Korean. At this moment Suzie the reporter appears, she continues covering the

event with its details ‘do you hear what they are saying? Filthy Korean dog

93

bastard. We’re going to send you back to Korea’ (Wong 82). When she feels that

she almost finished her coverage, she calls the police:

I was too busy, too preoccupied with disassociating myself from that

squirming, weak, yellow boy on the ground. Coolly, I hid myself

behind my profession thoroughly brainwashed by my complete-and-

utter certainty that I could not and would not be hurt … because I was

NOT like that kid. Those black boys with their baseball bat shattered

my beautiful delusion one and forever. For if it wasn’t yellow, then

what color did I think I was … (Wong 82)

Wong suggests that Matilda Duvet’s alleged attack is just a superficial issue,

because the real reason lies in the deep consciousness of Korean Americans and

African Americans as their demands are either ignored or denied. Psychological

accumulations formed over the years from being mistreated, stereotyped, and

marginalized by the white people. These accumulations are reinforced by the

American media which show stereotypical, humiliating images of Blacks and

Latinos. Many Asian small business owners find themselves located in inner city

urban areas where most of their customers are poor and working class Blacks and

Latinos. In these situations, “biased perceptions by Asian immigrants can be more

readily reinforced against Blacks and Latinos” (Le, Glimpses into the Future 176).

94

Conclusion

At the beginning of this century, sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois commented

that the color lines would be the problem of the 20th

century due to the civil rights

movement and changes in immigration laws that together resulted in a multiethnic

and multiracial American society (Lott 15). Immigrants from Asia came to

America in large numbers as news of gold discovery in California and the need for

laborers reached them. They worked in plantation, mining and in building

railroads. Chae notes that the migration of labor from Asia or other countries was,

in effect, “a structural consequence of U.S global expansion and U.S. Capitalism.

“America” as a multiethnic and multiracial nation was systematically created by

capitalists’ demands for a cheap labor force in the development process of U.S.

capitalism” (Beyond 64). The growing influence of Asian Americans has its

foundations in political and cultural as well as demographic changes. Asian

American activism, allied with other civil rights movements in the 1960s and after,

made important changes in “the social fabric of American life. One significant

aspect of these changes can be seen … [in their] contributions to the visual arts,

literature, music, dance, and theater” (Josephine Lee, Critical Strategies 3).

The social significance of Asian Americans is that they are neither White

nor Black; however, as a racial group they share some experiences with both of

95

them. In the past, they were mistreated, segregated and faced many experiences of

harsh discrimination similar to Blacks. But in recent decades, they have come to be

associated with Whites due to “similar socioeconomic and educational attainments

and similar residential patterns”. Despite their being subject to discrimination,

“they have historically had much higher levels of intermarriage than Blacks…”

(Lott 16).

Asian Americans generally have been suffering from media invisibility, but

when they are portrayed in television and film at all, negative stereotypes abound:

“organized criminals, gang members, or inscrutable and mysterious “Orientals.”

Positive and balanced images of Asian Americans have increased over time, but

they remain the exception rather than the rule” (Ancheta, Discrimination 48). The

distorted images of Asian Americans in the American media came as a result of

two phenomena: “the invisibility of Asians in general and the limited stereotypical

roles offered to Asian American actors on screen”. An Asian male is often

portrayed as a “villain, gangster, dope peddler, or a weakling in distress. An Asian

American woman is often seen as available and easy, or as the lotus blossom (a` la

Madame Butterfly): an accessible and willing mistress to white man.” The

mainstream media reflect the interests of the majority of the audiences. This

invisibility is a result of the “absence of strong Asian American film, television,

and theatre in cultural arenas” (Joann Faung Jean Lee, Preface 1).

96

According to Barton & McGregor Asian American theatre was “the last

voice” to be heard fully in the United States. Even the Federal Theater Project of

the 1930s, which provided opportunities for other ethnic minorities, neglected

Asian Americans (356). The existence of multicultural and ethnic theatres and the

inroads made by playwrights such as Velina Hasu Houston, David Henry Hwang,

and Phillip Gotanda into the regional and commercial theatre arena are evidence of

a formalization in American terms of theatrical traditions inherent to

Asia which have crossed the Pacific embedded in the cultures of

Asian immigrants. The theater that has become visible, through

publication and production, outside of Asian immigrant communities

is a natural extension of an ongoing cultural response to new

situations and social developments. (Uno, Introduction 8)

Josephine Lee believes that the new visibility of Asian American theatre

artists is part of a larger movement that has emerged in the past few decades due to

“the attention given to the political, cultural, and intellectual issues of race and

ethnicity” (Critical Strategies 3). Since the 1990s works by ethnic Americans have

brought increasing attention to international factors that affect the “cultural

makeup of the united states” (Moser 87) and Asian American plays are no

exception. Caricatures of all ethnic and racial groups “were common on the

American stage (especially Irish, Germans, Swedes, Italians, and Jews), but the

97

stereotypes of the "colored" people - African Americans, Indians, and Asians -

were the most prejudicial and longest lasting” (Postlewait 139). Although plays by

Asian Americans were written and performed earlier (notably in Hawaii), much of

the current body of theatrical work has been produced or made available to readers

only since the early 1970s. These works are now “gaining more public attention”

(Josephine Lee, Critical Strategies 3). The 1990s is an important period in the

history of Asian American theatre because a lot of Asian American plays and

studies were published which helped critics appreciate and pay attention to Asian

American plays, such as

scholarly works by Josephine Lee, James Moy, Dorinne Kondo, and

others provided historical, theoretical, and literary studies of Asian

American theatre. Their scholarship explored various issues, themes,

and developments while rooting their research in both Asian

American Studies and Theatre Studies. More recently, Alvin Eng’s

anthology of New York City Asian American performances, Yuko

Kurahashi’s study of the East West Players, and Karen Shimakawa’s

theoretical examination of abjection and embodiment have added to

this growing field. (Esther lee 2)

According to Miles Liu, the successful development and spreading of Asian

American drama would not have been possible without the establishment of Asian

98

American theatres across the country like the East West Players in Los Angeles

(1956), the Kumu Kahua Theatre in Hawaii (1971), the Asian American Theater

Company in San Francisco (1973), the Northwest Asian American Theatre in

Seattle (1976), and the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York (1977) (xi). The

1990s witnessed the emergence of smaller theatre companies on the West Coast

such as Teatro ng Tanan (Theater for the People) and Bindlestiff Studio, both

companies founded in the Filipino-American communities in San Francisco.

Theatre companies committed to the production of Asian American plays were

also formed in the Mid-west in the 1990s and 2000s, including Chicago’s Angel

Island Theatre Company and the Hmong Theatre Project, Rich Shiomi’s Theatre

Mu, and the Playwrights’ Center (Elizabeth Kim, The Facts 40). Although Asians

have become more visible in Asian repertory companies, television, and films, “the

roles they play remain essentially race specific and culture-conscious” (Joann

Faung Jean Lee, Introduction 4). One alternative to performing in traditional

venues and in often stereotypical roles “was to create new spaces in which both the

"Asian" and the "American" could be reimagined by Asian American actor, plays,

and audiences" (Josephine lee, Critical Strategies 15). The existence of these

theatres was and still important to Asian American playwrights to correct their

humiliating, distorted images made by the American media. Bigsby notes that to

escape the stereotype “it became necessary to create a counter-image and the

99

theatre was deeply implicated in resisting images which had themselves often

originated in the theatre or cinema” (Critical Introduction 373). Although some of

these companies were founded as alternatives to the mainstream dominated venues

for Asian American actors, they gave a massive motivation for Asian American

playwrights to emerge and have provided the continuity of their plays. This

indicates the great efforts that Asian American playwrights achieved to make their

works appreciated by readers and critics (Liu xi). These theatres were established

due to the frustration of non white actors in Hollywood over the lack of

opportunities and being offered stereotypic and demeaning roles. Asian American

actors were “virtually invisible on New York City stages…. [also] white actors in

yellow face makeup continued to play Asian parts…” (Esther Lee, Actors 29).

AATW (later named the Asian American Theatre Company) caused a big hit

by producing new plays that dealt with the issue of "the old media images of

Asians and aggressively revealing the frustrations and contradictions of Asian

American experience" (Berson, The Cambridge Guide to Theatre 54). Besides the

race prejudice, uneasiness of expressing their human natural feelings has been a

major factor “in the negligible number of Asian Americans in the theater, drama,

and literary arts” (Uyematsu 771). Frank Chin, the co-founder of the theatre,

succeeded in attracting the national attention with his agitated and controversial

plays; first Chickencoop Chinaman and later his Year of Dragon and Gee, Pop!.

100

He was the first Asian American playwright to have his works produced legally in

New York (Chickencoop Chinaman 1972, American Place Theatre). Frank Chin is

regarded by some as the “god-father” of Asian American writing. He was the first

Chinese American “to reach stardom in literature when he helped organized the

first Asian American literature curriculum at San Francisco State University in

1970” (Chen 41).

According to Chin such successful Asian-American authors as Maxine Hong

Kingston, Amy Tan, and David Henry Hwang are “fake” but well received by

mainstream America because they feed and satisfy the racist fantasy of white

Americans (Chen 41). Chin claims that Kingston, Hwang, and Tan are the first

writers of any race, and certainly the first writers of Asian ancestry,

to so boldly fake the best-known works from the most universally

known body of Asian literature and lore in history. And, to legitimize

their faking, they have to fake all of Asian American history and

literature, and argue that the immigrants who settled and established

Chinese America lost touch with Chinese culture, and that a faulty

memory combined with new experience produced new versions of

these traditional stories. This version of history is their contribution to

the stereotype. (3)

101

In the significant opening essay of The Big Aiiieeeee!, “Come All Ye Asian

American Writers of the Real and the Fake,” Chin dedicates a 92-page essay on the

critical issue of the real and the fake. Chin believes that the “real” Asian American

writing—non-Christian, non-feminine, and non-confessional—“avoids the genre of

autobiography, celebrates Asian heroic heritage, restores Asian-American

manhood from emasculation, and battles against white perceptions of Asian

Americans” (Chen 41). He argues that the serious writer as well as the serious

reader “should be familiar with the basic myths, legends, and histories that inform

East Asian cultures if Asian American writing is to distinguish the “real” from the

“fake”; that is, to know the difference between what is in fact Asian and what is

not” (Chan 381). However, in response to Chin’s accusations, Maxine Hong

Kingston and Amy Tan insisted that “myths change as people face new adventures

and experiences” and that early Chinese immigrants changed details of ancient

Chinese myths to deal with their new realities in America (Oh x).

The struggles to expose their true identities and positive presence in the

American culture led Asian American writers to a type of “cultural nationalism

that promoted strict and usually narrow versions of identity” and that make some

writers believe that insisting on a “unitary identity is the only effective means of

opposing and defending oneself against marginalization”. In addition to describing

famous, successful writers as being “fake”, the editors of The Aiiieeeee! An

102

Anthology of Asian American writers (1974) and its 1991 expanded version, The

Big Aiiieeeee!,

posited the notion of “Asian universal knowledge” embedded in

“Cantonese operas and Kabuki” and other artistic enterprises” of

Asian immigrants. In the anthology and their respective works, these

writers focused on American-born, non-Christian, male writers; in

addition, they identified writers only of Chinese and Japanese descent,

the most established Asian American groups. (Moser 86)

Frank Chin believes that the large number of Asian American women

writers and their commercial success is a threat to the Asian American manhood.

This belief results in “a misogynist current that runs through the selections chosen

in The Big Aiiieeeee!” (Patell 651). Chin believes that Asian American women

writers usually show great interest in portraying Chinese men in a bad image and

have “perpetuated the stereotype type of misogynic, and therefore inferior, Chinese

society…. [with] intentions to promote their work at the expense of Chinese men”

(Yin 235). Elaine Lee has argued that "aside from Toshio Mori, few Asian

American male writers have attempted multidimensional portrayals of Asian

American women," whereas such Asian American women writers as Noriko

Sawada, Emily Cachapero, Wakako Yamauchi, Eleanor Wong Telemaque, and

Hisaye Yamamoto have "demonstrated a profound sympathy for an understanding

103

of their men". Not surprisingly, these writers are appreciated by Chin and his

coeditors because, as Elaine Lee suggests, their efforts "complement the efforts of

male writers to correct distortions and omissions about Asian American men" (qtd.

in Patell 651). Writers and scholars who embrace Chin’s attitude towards those

writers believe that he is a courageous writer as he tries to show the real image of

Asian Americans, however, some detractors believe that his position is both

"arbitrary and illogical, especially in its naive or false understanding of basic

principles of folklore, oral narratives, and cross-cultural discourse, and that it

unsuccessfully masks a profound jealousy of writers who have been far more

influential than he” (Lawrence 138-139). Perhaps Chin’s opinion is true; however,

it is undeniable that those writers have contributed a lot in broadening the

knowledge of the white readers and making them begin to seek the real identity of

Asian Americans away from the distorted image made by the American media.

Most of Chin’s accusations were directed towards famous Asian American

writers because, as he claims, they do not offer a good model to the American

reader and use the distorted image of Asian American manhood to market their

writings. Surprisingly, Chin adopted the same technique in his most celebrating

play Chickencoop Chinaman (1972). This play is the first work by an Asian

American playwright to be produced on a mainstream stage in New York. The

play’s main theme is searching for a father figure and failing to find it. In this play

104

Chin blames America’s racism for Asian American men’s loss of manhood. Tam

Lum, the protagonist, flies to Pittsburgh searching for the father of Ovaltine Jack

the Dancer, a former lightweight champion, for his documentary film, but he finds

that Charley Popcorn is not Ovaltine’s father but a former boxer trainer who now

runs a porno movie house, and who is a ‘bigot’ and a ‘black racist when it comes

to yellow people’ (Chin, Chickencoop 42). It is obvious from Tam’s journey that

he is searching for an adequate Asian American figure to find a replacement for his

effeminate, absent father whom he described as ‘a crazy old dishwasher’(Chin,

Chickencoop 17). Tam himself is not a good father; he could not save his marriage

from a Caucasian wife or keep his children with him because he is afraid that one

day his children will be like him ‘Chinamans do make lousy fathers. I know. I have

one’ (Chin, Chickencoop 23), referring to his father. Throughout the play, Chin

does not offer any good example of Asian American men and even at the end of

the play the protagonist could not find one. After reading this play, one will realize

that Chin contradicts himself because he offers a distorted image of Asian

American manhood like the “fake” writers he used to attack.

Although Asian American women playwrights have often sought to

“deconstruct the patriarchy that underlies the Asian American or Asian female

experience”, Chin has accused this group of contributing to the negative stereotype

that Asian American male must confront. This male-female debate has continued

105

as “a subtheme of writing in the Asian American community to the present day”

(Foley 46). However, whether these accusations are true or not, it is undeniable

that those women playwrights have been contributing a lot in bringing Asian

American theatre to the mainstream audiences and critics in an attempt to make

their community visible. These efforts include establishing Asian American

theatres and publishing important books and anthologies about it. The frustration

of Asian American actors in finding decent roles led to the establishment of some

Asian American theatres. On the East Coast, there is the Pan Asian Repertory

Theater, founded in 1973 by the actress and director Tisa Chang In 1979.

Similarly, Roberta Uno founded the “NEW WORLD Theater” at the University of

Massachusetts at Amherst, “specializing in works by African, Asian, Latina, and

Native American playwrights” (Scholte, Asian American 228). The significant

contributions made by Asian American women playwrights extend to publishing

books and anthologies to call attention to many important issues and experiences

that might be ignored in the American theatre like the Vietnam War, the Japanese

internment, assimilation, integration, stereotypes, and marginalization. One of the

most influential books is Asian American playwrights: A Bio-bibliographical

Critical Sourcebook edited by Miles Xian Liu (2002). The fifty-two entries—one

for each playwright—are arranged alphabetically. Each entry consists of four

sections: Biography, Major Works and Themes, Critical Reception, and

106

Bibliography. It is believed that the great efforts that Roberta Uno and her

collaborators made have improved considerably the status of “near-invisibility” of

the work of Asian American women playwrights which include

the Roberta Uno Asian American Women Playwrights’ Script

Collection 1942- present, which apart from the play script, also

includes photos, playbills, and interviews. Misha Berson’s anthology

of Asian American plays, Between Worlds (1990), was followed by

several play collections exclusively devoted to Asian American

women playwrights: Houston ‘s the Politics of Life: Four Plays by

Asian American Women (1993) and Uno’s Unbroken Thread: An

Anthology Of Plays By Asian American Women (1993). Works by

Asian American women playwrights have also been included in other

anthologies: Kathy Perkins and Uno’s Contemporary Plays by Women

of Color (1995), Houston’s But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise: New Asian

American Plays (1997), Brian Nelson’s Asian American Drama: Nine

Plays from the Multiethnic Landscape (1997), Roger Ellis’s

Multicultural Theatre II: Contemporary Hispanic, Asian and African

American plays (1998), and Alvin Eng’s Tokens? The NYC Asian

American Experience on Stage (1999). (Scholte, Asian American 228)

107

Likewise, Asian American women playwrights’ contributions are clear in

the language, form, and message used in their plays. The settings of their plays are

no longer the “small living rooms” and “kitchens” like those used in the previous

generations. Also, their characters are not “culturally displaced or defeated

women” anymore but are “agitated warrior women” … playwrights today do not

simply express their culture internally or display it for the audience but demand the

world to put it in context” (Miyagawa 13).

Patell notes that with the enfranchisement of women by the Nineteenth

Amendment in 1919, “the legal standing of Asian American men was further

eroded, and even after the enfranchisement of Chinese Americans in 1943, the

stereotype of the effeminate Asian American man would continue to be pervasive

and damaging” (591). Since they were the first Asian group to reach America in

large scales, Chinese immigrants and their successors were subjected to many

different stereotypic images. According to Robert G. Lee in Orientals: Asian

Americans in Popular Culture (1999), the Chinese, as a race, “has at least six faces

in American racist or racialist representations—the pollutant, the coolie, the

deviant, the yellow peril, the model minority, and the gook….” (qtd. in Yunte

Huang 127). Josephine Lee argues that the oppressive laws against Asian men and

preventing a lot of Asian women from immigration led to the isolation of

significant numbers of Chinese and Filipino men in “bachelor communities”. She

108

adds that “despite the substantive changes in law and policy, demographics, and

political and cultural visibility of Asian Americans, the negative effects of these

laws are still felt” (Performing America 142).

From the very beginning, Asian American writers tend to dramatize their

cultural roots and experiences which are foreign to the American mainstream.

They write about “different racial memories and ethnic experiences of Asian

immigrants as well as their second, third, or even fourth and fifth generations in the

United States … [and this] is supposed to reflect the pluralistic American society.

(Zing 67). Bigsby notes that:

The theater is a public rite. It is a mechanism for addressing anxieties,

for seeking to locate form in the randomness of events. It is also,

however, an expression of its society and has historically perpetuated

those social caricatures that are the mechanism of power. Just as

Hwang chose to see theatrical stereotypes as a clue to the damaging

misapprehensions that in turn become the basis for social action, so, in

Yankee Dawg You Die, Philip Kan Gotanda stages a debate between

two actors who discuss the stereotypical roles offered to Asians. In

other words, these are plays that acknowledge the theater's power

either to confirm or resist the reductivism that lies at the heart of

prejudice. (Cambridge 97)

109

Most ethnic theatres in America resist the vicious racial discrimination and

marginalization and used them as a source of inspiration and Asian American

theatre is no exception. Lei points out that many Asian American dramas rely on

“the binary system: one has to choose aside, to be Asian or to be American, or one

can reject both while still depending on both to position oneself in the fight. The

tension between the binary choices is a consistent factor in the plays, whether

between generations or within oneself” (314). However, Asian American authors

challenge their readers to approach their writings with “a necessary of perspective”

because, as Srikanth suggests, the worst thing a reader can do is

to reduce the interpretative framework to binary opposites- American

or not? Asian or not? Local or Transnational? Citizen or foreigner?

Such polarities do nothing to engage the difficulties of creating and

maintaining a civic society in these complicated times and neglects

the complex of web of interlocking and inter-related themes explored

in contemporary Asian American literature: nostalgia, memory, hope,

rebuilding, journeying, erasure, family, gender relations, voice,

neighborhood, place, belonging, comfort, refuge, departure, arrival.

(Beyond 107-108)

According to Murphy, one of the most important sources for American

theatre and drama toward the end of the twentieth century was “the universities”.

110

He adds that a new generation of playwrights and theatre artists “who were trained

to create theatre in academic theater programs set the tone for the literary theatre of

the 1980s and 1990s”. David Henry Hwang is one of the outstanding Asian

American playwrights who used racial discrimination as a source of inspiration in

his hit play M. Butterfly. David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly (1988), “with its

postmodern deconstruction of gender, ethnic, and imperialist cultural stereotypes,

shows evidence of his education at Stanford and the Yale School of Drama, where

these issues were major concerns of the 1980s” (427). The original title is

Monsieur Butterfly, but Hwang shortened it to M. Butterfly which seems more

“mysterious and ambiguous” (Lu 380). Saddik notes that:

Hwang takes the mythical figure of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly ,the

submissive, self-sacrificing Japanese geisha girl, who ultimately

commits suicide after she is deserted by the American naval officer

who married and impregnated her, and turns her into ‘M.’ Butterfly–

neither Madame or Monsieur–an ambiguous symbol of gender

complexity, political resistance and empowerment. (156)

De Ornellas believes that With M. Butterfly, David Henry Hwang achieved

“a double success: a commercial hit on Broadway and a serious contribution to the

awareness of issues affecting the relationship between the West and the Far East”

111

(185). M. Butterfly opened at the National Theatre, Washington, D. C., on February

10, 1988, and moved to Broadway within six weeks, debuting at the Eugene

O’Neill Theatre on March 20 (Esther Lee, The Second Wave 128). The idea of the

play came to Hwang when he read an article in the New York Times about a

former French diplomat, Bernard Bouriscot, arrested on charges of turning over

embassy documents to his Chinese lover Shi Peipu, who turned out to be not only a

spy but also a man (Lu 380). The diplomat testified that this news was shocking to

him. Hwang immediately saw a potential play in the story but “purposely refrained

from further research for [he] was not interested in writing docudrama” (qtd. in

Esther Lee, The Second Wave 128). The play succeeds as “intellectual provocation

because of its merciless deconstruction of Asian stereotypes fanned by fantasies

such as Puccini’s opera, Madama Butterfly” (De Ornellas 185).

In M. Butterfly, Hwang made some changes in the setting and his technique

of writing for specific purposes. He transfers the action from Japan (in Puccini’s

opera) to China which are culturally different to signify “a blurring of Asian

cultural identity in the Western mind” (Saddik 156). Hendrick points out that

David Henry Hwang did not use the “linear plot structures”6 inspired by the

German playwright Bertolt Brecht, but he rather uses several devices that highlight

the artificial nature of performance. She notes that:

112

the main character narrates the story speaking directly to the audience;

several of the actors play more than one role; the play leaps

backwards and forwards in time rather than following a linear plot

line. These devices serve to remind the audience that they are

watching a performance, and, by de-emphasizing plot, the play steers

the audience’s attention to the social and political issues behind the

dramatic events. (356)

Hwang began writing M. Butterfly “with the presumption that the French

diplomat fell in love not with an actual person but with a fantasy stereotype of the

Orient, the Madame Butterfly” (Esther Lee, The Second Wave 132). The play is

not only “subverting the stereotyped image of the Oriental woman and the East,”

but also “questions the stability of identity purported by that political/sexual

stereotype (Zhou & Cheng 184).” In Hwang’s M. Butterfly, the diplomat Rene

Gallimard is the counterpart of Puccini’s westerner, Pinkerton. He falls in love

with Peking opera singer Song Liling, who is “fantasized” by Gallimard to be the

counterpart of Puccini’s Cio-Cio-San, Madame Butterfly. Gallimard’s fantasy

toward Song makes him “unaware of Song’s gender and motive until Song

removes makeup and changes into men’s clothes near the end of the play” (Lu

380).

113

In act 3, when the French judge asks Song how he fooled Gallimard, he

answers: ‘One, because when he finally met his fantasy woman, he wanted more

than anything to believe that she was, in fact, a woman. And second, I am an

Oriental. And being an Oriental, I could never be completely a man’ (Hwang 83).

These two points about the characters’ relationship “metaphorically represent the

play’s main themes. The first is the West’s misunderstanding of the East as exotic,

submissive, mystical, delicate, poor, and feminine. Conversely, the West thinks of

itself as “masculine—big guns, big industry, big money” (Esther Lee, The Second

Wave 133). The basic arc of the play, as Hwang has explained is simple. The

Frenchman imagination made him think that he is the Pinkerton and his lover is the

Butterfly. However, by the end of the play, he realizes that it is he who has been

Butterfly, in that (Gray 722). Motivated by desperation and his feeling of shame,

Gallimard dresses himself like Madame Butterfly and then commits suicide. Lu

suggests that the tragic ending of M. Butterfly indicates a

symbolic warning to the west to cultivate a balanced cultural

understanding and to adjust their views of the Orient; otherwise they,

like Gallimard, may come to a dead end when dealing with people in

and of the East. In other words, both a sense of racial supremacy and

imperialist mentality need to be eradicated (381).

114

The white man has brainwashed himself into believing that he is superior to

other ethnic groups and this made him create distorted and humiliating images of

them and use the American media to spread them. One of the main aims of Asian

American playwrights is to change this image and show their true identity. By the

mid-60s, the image of Asians in America had changed dramatically. Niiya points

out that the image of the “yellow peril moniker had mysteriously vanished to be

replaced by the advent of the “model minority” label. Suddenly Asian Americans,

or more accurately Chinese and Japanese Americans, were perceived as having

overcome past injustice to make it in America” (36) and succeeded in achieving

the so called the American Dream. Although this image has some positive

indications, it is still unfavorable to Asian Americans. In 1966, when William

Peterson first coined the phrase “model minority” in his article for the New York

Times Magazine, entitled, “Success Story Japanese American Style,” he probably

did not expect that he is creating something more than a linguistic term. Li and

Wang believe that Peterson “has … started a field of study filled with ideological,

political, racial, and cultural contestations between the mainstream society and

Asian American researchers and intellectuals and within the Asian American

academic community itself” (3). Shortly he wrote another one focusing on Chinese

Americans, appeared in U.S. News and World Report on December 26, 1966.

Petersen concluded that “Japanese and Chinese cultures/values/ethics of hard work

115

and strong family ties enabled Japanese Americans and Chinese Americans to

overcome racial barriers to achieve high academic and economic success in

society” (Stacey Lee 70). Advocates of this label claim that:

educational, occupational, and economics status are strong indicators

of Asian success in a society that historically has limited their

assimilation in mainstream society. Asian Americans fit the model

minority stereotype because the majority of their population has

overcome the obstacles plague other minority groups in American

society. Part of their success is based on their small but growing

population that does not pose a threat to mainstream society. In

contrast, other minority populations, such as the African Americans

and Latinos, have much larger populations and consequently are

perceived as much of a threat to mainstream society, and this

perception increases and intensifies discriminatory practices on a

larger scale. (Nakanishi 246)

Professor Peter Kiang believes that one of the reasons that Asian Americans

are labeled as model minority is their tendency to study certain fields like

“accounting, computer science, mathematics, and engineering” that require

“relatively few verbal and written English-language-skills” (qtd. in Moody 79).

116

Although teachers and guidance counselors usually encourage them to have

interests in other fields, “they are frequently pigeonholed into technical fields”

(Moody 79). Palumbo- Liu argues that the model minority label indicates that

“minorities should be grateful for having been accepted by the dominant white

culture, while feeling content to stay one level below whites because they can

never fully measure up to their standards” (qtd. in Shrake 184). He adds that the

image of the model minority “reinforces the dominant culture’s idea of acceptable

minorities and, by extension, the negative impression of those recalcitrant ‘‘other’’

minorities” (qtd. in Shrake 184). However, those who succeeded are workers of

high skills and well educated people. According to the 2000 census, more than 12

percent of Asian Americans in the United States earn an income under the poverty

level. Southeast Asians are more likely to live in poverty than other Asians

(Sacramento and Cruz 149). Also, it is obvious that in talking about the model

minority, nobody seemed to mention groups like the Filipino Americans or the

Korean Americans “who didn’t quite fit the image the media establishment wanted

to project” (Niiya 37). The media-fostered image of Asian immigrants as a model

minority has helped reinforce this myth of America as a multicultural tolerable

society. The publication of writings by Asian immigrants or their descendents

under the label of “multicultural literature” or “ethnic literature,” to a large extent

characterized by “successful” stories, has also contributed towards “under-

117

representation of the poverty, racial discrimination, social oppression, and

economic inequality that most minorities have been suffering” (Chae, Introduction

4). This indicates that Asian American writings have reinforced the image of

model minority not just the American media.

In the past Asians and Asian Americans were labeled as “Orientals” to deny

their political rights or being a part of the American society and to allow the

American government to treat them as perpetual foreigners but now they are

regarded as a model minority not to their “mystical Asian cultural beliefs” or

“racial superiority” (Inkelas 13) but to assure the system stability, ethnic equality

and social justice in America. Neil Gotanda believes that this label, model

minority, places Asian Americans “in well to do class position” (384) higher than

other minorities, especially African Americans who are usually described as being

lazy, stupid, aggressive, and criminals, but lower than the whites. However,

positive stereotypes do not necessarily have positive results. This image does not

only thwart and discourage other minorities but it also creates jealousy and grudge

against Asian Americans. This is clear in Los Angeles riots that took place

between African Americans and Korean Americans in 1992. Likewise, the myth of

model minority has negative effects on Asian Americans’ health and it sometimes

results in committing suicide, especially among Asian American women. In her

influential study “Suicide among Asian Americans” (2002), Eliza Noh argues that

118

the model minority myth has created a huge pressures on Asian American women

due to “unrealistic expectations of success, as well as social taboos against

acknowledging experiences of mental illness, depression, or suicidal tendencies”

(12). The negative effects of this label also appear in higher education. Ancheta

notes that: “Asian Americans as a racial group form large percentages of many

student bodies, ethnic groups such as Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders are

not well represented and are often excluded from recruitment programs designed to

increase the representation of racial minorities” (Law 163).

Although model minority is a social label, it has a negative influence on

Asian American theatre. Frank Chin has always been blaming Asian American

playwrights and accusing them for being responsible for the feminine image of the

Asian American male. However, it is undeniable that their writings contribute to

Asian American playwrights’ efforts in giving a serious warning of the negative

effects of Asian stereotypes like Hwang’s M. Butterfly. This feminine image is a

direct result to the model minority label. Shrake notes that the model minority

stereotype paints “a misleading portrait of Asian Americans as a polite, docile, and

non threatening people. It is at this point that the model minority stereotype

becomes genderized (feminized). Asian Americans as a model minority are

supposed to assume feminine qualities of passivity, submissiveness, self-

effacement, and reticence to speak out”. He adds that this image is particularly

119

dangerous because “it tells Asian Americans how to behave. It tells us to pose no

threat to the White establishment, to take things quietly, not to complain, and not

fight back” (184).

Surprisingly, the persistence of model minority label has negative effects on

white people as well. The stereotype of Asian superiority in math results in white

underperformance because they are “fearful of confirming the stereotype that their

racial group has inferior abilities in math. This fear extends to white parents who

pull their children out of schools with high Asian American population so that their

children do not have to compete with Asian American students” (Cheryan &

Bodenhausen 175).

Elizabeth Kim argues that the demographic changes that happened among

Asian American communities in the 1970s and beyond are reflected on the

appearance of plays in the 1980s and 1990s that focus on “multiethnic and

multiracial intersections and the formation of hybrid identities”. Prior to these

changes was the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, which aimed at removing

the barriers to Asian immigration to the United States. She adds that playwrights of

various Asian backgrounds like the Filipinos, Indians, Koreans, and Vietnamese

began to share their own experiences and joined Chinese American and Japanese

American playwrights “to expand the scope of Asian-American playwriting” (The

Facts 39). The ethnic composition of those artists reflected the demographics of the

120

Asian American population, as well as the class background in the United States.

Accordingly, one find that their themes tend to reflect their common historical

experiences, problems, and values like: “Chinese immigration and labor histories,

such as work on the railroads, and the Japanese American internment camps of

World War II” (Kondo x). Elizabeth Kim notes that:

Some of these plays, such as Huynh Quang Nhuong’s Dance of the

Wandering Souls (1997), serve to educate America’s mainstream

audiences about the myths and histories of a specific Asian or Asian

American culture. Dance of the Wandering Souls frames China’s

millennial rule in Vietnam as a story of warring families determined

to pass on their long legacy of hostility and aggression to the next

generation. The play both informs American audiences about this

early phase of Vietnam’s history, though in highly mythologized

form, and suggests a remedy for war in the promise of the eventual

union of the younger generation. (The Facts 39)

Throughout their long journey Asian American playwrights have tried hard

to expose the true identity of Asian Americans and to defy the imposed

stereotypical images made by the American media and by the American culture

that always demeans any ethnic group other than the white one. Winning many

awards and having their books put on the bestseller lists make us realize that some

121

Asian American playwrights have achieved great commercial success; however,

this does not indicate that they have succeeded in changing the humiliating,

distorted images of Asian Americans. After so many years of being ignored and

underestimated, Asian American playwrights succeeded in grabbing the attention

of the mainstream readers and critics who finally begin to appreciate their works.

The American society began to realize the problems of this ethnic group from these

plays. Unfortunately, Asian American citizens tend to be invisible and segregated

and this is clear in San Francisco Chinatown. This community is specially made by

Chinese immigrants to protect their unique identities, traditions, values, languages

and cultures from being overshadowed or destroyed by the American culture or

from being forgotten by the younger generations. Adopting the invisible state is

also clear and much worse in the case of Filipino Americans who tend to keep their

traditions and cultures from the younger generations. De Leon believes that lacking

the sense of equality in America led some Filipino Americans to adopt

an orientation of invisibility, rarely acknowledging their contributions

or accomplishments in America, though numerous and significant.

This attitude further perpetuates the invisibility of the Filipino

American community… And whether intended or unintended, first-

generation Filipino parents often transfer this orientation to their

American-born and -raised children. Hence, Filipino American youth

122

not only have to search for a history and culture that is sometimes lost

or kept from them, but they must also battle the mentalities that

prevent them from embracing that heritage. (193)

De Leon adds that although in some instances, Filipino American youth

“may accept their parents’ strategies of invisibility, their lived experiences in

American society also inspire them to perform acts of resistance in their attempt to

reconcile their history and present situation” (194).

Today Asian Americans are still scared. Their passive behavior helps keep

national attention on blacks. Asian Americans believe that by being as invisible as

possible, they keep pressures of themselves at the expense of the blacks. Asian

Americans have formed “an uneasy alliance with white Americans to keep the

blacks down. They ignored the white racism toward them which has never

changed” (Uyematsu 771). Uno notes that:

In the American theater the silencing of Asians has been particularly

consequential, not only because of their invisibility or

marginalization, but also because of the distortion of their image by

both stereotypical writing and the continuing, accepted practice of

casting European American actors as Asians. The silencing of Asians

in America through laws, social practice, and the media has

cumulatively served to affect the psyche of Asians and non-Asians

123

alike. The result is a willingness to accept and view Asians as silent,

uncomplaining, and accepting of their lot. (Introduction 3)

In the recent decades, it is evident that some aspects of Asian American lives

and status have undergone some changes while others do not. These aspects are

reflected in Asian American theatre. While some themes have emerged from Asian

American contemporary problems and challenges, others are unchanged and still

used in Asian American plays. Some of these unchanged themes are considered an

important part in Asian American history such as the Japanese internment during

World War II. While some playwrights depict the life in the camps like, Wakako

Yamauchi’s 12-1-A (1992) and Lane Nishikawa’s Gila River (1998), other plays

explore the long term psychological effects of this experience on Japanese

Americans like Gotanda’s A Song for a Nisei Fisherman (1995), and The Wash

(1995). The riots between Asian Americans and African Americans like Brenda

Wong Aoki’s The Queen Garden (1992) that was written as a response to Los

Angeles riots, and the Vietnam War like Jeannie Barroga’s Walls (1989). Other

plays introduce new themes that depict the problems and challenges that Asian

Americans face. These themes include racism and racial stereotype like David

Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly (1988), the distorted image of Asians and Asian

Americans in the American media and the challenges that face Asian American

actors like Elizabeth Wong’s China Doll (1991), the generational clash between

124

Asian Americans and their American born children like Philip Kan Gotanda’s Fish

Head Soup (1995). The intermarriages between Asian Americans and other ethnic

groups like Dmae Roberts’ Breaking Glass (1995), and the internal struggles

between being loyal to Asian cultures and values and living in a completely

different culture with its standards that always humiliate any ethnic group other

than the white one to confirm their superiority like Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee

Dawg You Die (1987).

The American media are the most influential means in spreading the

stereotypical images of Asian Americans. They do not differentiate between

Asians living in Asian countries and Asian Americans; Americans living in

America from Asian descent. The American portrayal of Asian Americans

increases the hatred and grudge towards them especially at times when political

crises occur between America and Asian countries. This misunderstanding came as

a result of media misuse by the white man. The white man refuses to feel that

someone is more superior to him, so he uses Asian Americans as a scapegoat to his

wrong decisions and actions and uses the grudge and jealousy that other minorities

bear to draw their attention away from him. This plan proves to be successful and

shows the cunning face of the white man. This is evident in Los Angeles riots in

1992 which turned from bad to worse due to the bad coverage and the poor reports

of the media managed by white people. The riots were between African Americans

125

and Korean Americans and extend to include all Asian Americans. This event

affected the psychology of many Asian Americans and made them believe that

being invisible to the mainstream American society is better than being visible and

be victimized either by the white man or by other oppressed minorities. Chang &

Diaz-Veizades believe that by focusing on the Korean–African American conflict,

“the white establishment in New York was able to dismiss the charge of racism by

African Americans by accusing them of being “racist” themselves against Korean

Americans” (73). Although there is no specific event that starts these riots, some of

them were shocking enough to remain in the African American memory like the

attack of Rodney King on March 3, 1991. A bystander, George Holliday,

videotaped four white police officers beating a black man, Rodney King, who

offers little resistance. Holliday did not offer the tape to LAPD [Los Angeles

Police Department]; instead, a local television station took the footage. The scene

was shown around the world and King became the victim of police brutality.

Rainer & Rainer note that from the perspective of the video footage, the attack was

“unprovoked toward a defenseless man. The rage in the nation was palpable”

(152).

A year later, in 1992, the Los Angeles race riots broke out when a California

jury acquitted the four white police officers of using excessive force against

Rodney King. This acquittal was a great humiliation to African Americans and

126

resulted in widespread “looting, assaults, arsons, and murder occurred during the

rioting. Property damage was assessed at more than one billion dollars. Fifty- three

people were killed and thousands more injured. At that time, The L.A riot of 1992

was the worst riot in American history” (Ford 275).

Although these riots were supposed to be between African Americans and

the American system, Asian Americans got involved in these riots. They were

visible as enemies for African Americans and invisible in the media when they try

to defend themselves. According to Chang & Diaz-Veizades there are numerous

other examples of Asian invisibility in the media before, during, and after the Los

Angeles riots. They note that

No television stations in Los Angeles interviewed an Asian American

in the first seventy-two hours after the Rodney King verdicts were

announced. The Los Angeles Times and other media ignored a news

conference on the second day of the riots when Councilman Mike

Woo, Police Commissioner Mike Yamaki, and other Asian American

community leaders called for justice for Rodney King. (62)

Today, it is clear that being visible or invisible is the same for Asian

Americans as both of them have negative consequences on their lives. For Fong,

Asian Americans are “only visible as stereotypes, and invisible due to widespread

ignorance of their distinct histories and contemporary experiences” (qtd. in Ty 24).

127

It is evident that America takes advantage of the image of Asian Americans

whether it is positive or negative to keep and protect its fake image as the land of

promises and equality where non-white individuals will be treated fairly and be

able to achieve their dreams without any obstacles. The idea of America’s ability

in absorbing people with different cultural backgrounds and beliefs still exists until

now. However, this comes out to be just a lie. If America is accused of treating

minorities unfairly, it will use the “model minority” myth to show how Asian

Americans have achieved many accomplishments in America and that it has no

hand in the failure of other minorities. But, if Asian Americans fight for their rights

to be visible and have their problems solved, they will fall as victims of racial

discrimination and face violence from other minorities, especially African

Americans. So, Asian Americans are confused and get lost whether to run after

their rights to show their true identity and correct their distorted images for their

dignity and their duty towards the younger generations or to be invisible and accept

their current position for their safety.

Asian American playwrights are clear and straightforward in their decision

about which side they should take. They chose to be heard and visible. They do not

believe in compromises but they rather prefer to struggle to reveal their true

identity and fight for their rights to be appreciated and respected. They believe that

struggling for their image is a part of their duty towards the younger generations.

128

Asian American playwrights believe that the respected treatment should be applied

to the majority of Asian Americans not just the well-educated or rich people

because it is their right and it should not be regarded as a gift from the American

government. Although theatre is not as influential as cinema and television, Asian

American playwrights continue their struggles to show the true identity of Asian

Americans as they are deliberately disallowed from using other powerful means of

media managed by the whites. Judi Nihei observed that the very existence of Asian

American theatres means that

Asian Americans have not been embraced by the mainstream.

However, to preserve Asian American identities and to educate this

new global village about the unique Asian American sensibility,

history, and experiences, there will always be a need for Asian

American theatres, writers, performers, actors, directors, and

designers as beacons to challenge the established patterns of the so-

called mainstream and to continue to lead the theatre world in new

directions (qtd. in Hong, Asian-American Almanac 593).

Unfortunately, Asian American playwrights’ efforts to make their ethnic

group visible with their true identity and to be represented in a respectable way in

media is fiercely resisted by some Asian American citizens who believe that being

invisible will cause them less problems and make them live in peace. This

129

challenging situation puts most Asian Americans in a semi-visible state. In other

words, invisible till the American system requires their visibility. This does not

mean that Asian American playwrights stopped their attempts but this creates a

bigger challenge for them and they become confident that they chose the right side

when they find that the new generations of Asian Americans begin to realize the

problems of their groups, fight for their survival and appreciate their achievements

in the American society. Asian American playwrights believe that in addition to

the theatrical productions of their literary works, Asian Americans must make

more efforts to show their true identity through self-esteem and self-confidence.

They must pay attention to their personal mistakes and break the ethnic boundaries

between them and other ethnic groups or between them and the American

mainstream society. They must begin to be proud of their contributions to the

welfare of the American society. Also, they must appreciate their cultures, values,

and traditions and passed them to the younger generations.

130

End Notes:

Chapter I:

1- Sansei: a Japanese word literally means third generation. (Merriam-

Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011.Web. 1 January 2011).

2- Nisei: a Japanese word literally means second generation. (Merriam-

Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011.Web. 1 January 2011).

3- Issei: a Japanese word literally means first generation. (Merriam-

Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011.Web. 1 January 2011).

4-Actors Equity: a labor organization established in May, 1913. it directed its

initial efforts toward obtaining a standard contract for its members which would

provide for free transportation to and from New York city, two weeks notice of

dismissal, curtailed rehearsal time, pay for actors dismissed without

compensation after more than a week of rehearsal, limitation of extra

performances without wages, and pay for all weeks actually played. (Louis B.

Perry and Richard S. Perry, A History of the Los Angeles Labor Movement,

1911-1941, 1963) p 377.

131

Chapter III:

5-

Tiananmen Square Massacre: were a series of demonstrations in and near

Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. Dozens of tanks and thousands of Chinese

troops entered the Square and brutally slaughtered killing thousands of unarmed

students and civilian protesters. This massacre was ordered by the leader of the

Communist Party of China, Deng Xiaoping, who thought that these protests would

threaten his power and his party. (David Curtis Wright, The History of China, 2nd

ed. 2011) p 188.

Conclusion:

6-Linear Plot Structure: in this structural pattern, one event anticipates, causes, or

leads to another in a progressive, forward-moving timeline and cause-effect

progression. Events are linked together to form a beginning that builds to a

middle and then is resolved in the ending. (Soe Marlar Lwin, Narrative Structure

in Burmese Folk Tales, 2011) p 31.

132

Works Cited:

Abbeele, Georges Van Den, et al. “Film and Theater: Theatrical Movements.” The Pacific Region: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional

Cultures. Ed. Jan Goggans and Aaron DiFranco. Westport, Conn:

Greenwood Press, 2004. 185- 212. Print.

Abbotson, Susan C. W. “Philip Kan Gotanda (1951- )” The Facts on File Companion to American Drama. Ed. Jackson R. Bryer and Mary C.

Hartig. 2nd ed. New York: Facts on File, 2010. 202-203. Print.

---. “Asian American Experience.” Thematic Guide to Modern Drama. Westport,

Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print.

Amano, Kyoko. "Philip Kan Gotanda." Ed. Guiyou Huang. Vol. 1. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature. 3Vols. Westport,

Conn: Greenwood Press, 2009. 322-329. Print.

Amend, Allison. Overview. Multicultural voices: Asian-American Writers.

New York: Chelsea House, 2010. 7-12. Print.

Ancheta, Angelo N. “Legacies of Discrimination.” Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience. 2

nded. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,

2006. Print.

---. “Discrimination and Antidiscrimination Law.” Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience. 2

nded New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,

2006. Print.

---. “Law and Racial Hierarchy.” Race, Rights, and the Asian American experience. 2

nd ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006. Print.

Dirlik, Arif. “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in

the Making of Contemporary Asian America.” Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization. Ed. Roxann Prazniak and Arif Dirlik. Lanham, MD:

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001. 73- 100. Print.

Arnold, Stephanie. "Dissolving the Half Shadows: Japanese American

Playwrights." Making a Spectacle: Feminist Essays on Contemporary Women’s Theatre. Ed. Lynda Hart. Ann Harbor: University of

Michigan Press, 1989. 181- 194. Print.

133

Barton, Robert and Annie McGregor. “Contemporary Voices: Asian American

Theatre.” Theatre in Your Life. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning,

2008. Print.

Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. “Emergent Literatures: Legacies of the Sixties.” The Cambridge History of American Literature: Prose Writing 1940- 1990.

Vol 7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 615- 654. Print.

Berson, Misha. “Asian-America Theatre.” The Cambridge Guide to Theatre.

Ed. Martin Banham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.54-55.

Print.

--- and Randy Gener. “Asian American Theatre.” The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre. Ed. Don B. Wilmeth. 2

nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. 2007. 84-85. Print.

---. “Pan Asian Repertory Theatre.” The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Ed. Don B.

Wilmeth and Tice L. Miller. 2nd

ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 6227. 922. Print.

---. “Fighting the Religion of the Present: Western Motifs in the First Wave of

Asian American Plays.” Reading the West: New Essays on the Literature of the American West. Ed. Michael Kowaleweski. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1996. 251- 272. Print.

Bigsby, Christopher. “Changing America: A Changing Drama?” The Cambridge History of American Literature: Prose Writing 1940- 1990. Vol 7. Ed. Sacvan

Bercovitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 9002. 76- 100. Print.

---. “Indian American Theatre.” A Critical Introduction to Twentieth Century American Drama: Beyond Broadway. 1985. Vol 3. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print.

Bordman, Gerald and Thomas S. Hischak. “Asian-American Theatre and

Drama.” The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 3rd

ed. New York:

Oxford University Press, 2004. Print.

---. “Miss Saigon (1991).” The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 3rd

ed.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print.

134

Brislin, Tom. “Exotics, Erotics, and Coconuts: Stereotypes of Pacific Islanders.”

Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. Ed. Paul Martin

Lester and Susan Dente Ross. 2nd. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003.

103-111. Print.

Chae, Youngsuk, ed. Introduction. “Who Consumes Multiculturalism?”

Politicizing Asian American Literature: Towards a Critical Multiculturalism.

New York: Routledge, 2008. 1- 11. Print.

---. “Beyond Ethnicity: The Critical Movement in Asian American Literature.”

Politicizing Asian American Literature: Towards a Critical Multiculturalism.

New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.

Chan, Jeffery Paul. “Frank Chin First Asian American Dramatist.” The Asian Pacific American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts.

Ed. George J. Leonard. Vol 2901. New York: Garland Pub, 2005.

381- 384. Print.

Chang, Edward T and Jeannette Diaz-Veizades. “The Media, the Invisible

Minority, and Race.” Ethnic Peace in the American City: Building Community in Los Angeles and Beyond. New York: New York University

Press, 1999. Print.

Chaudhuri, Una. “If Not Here, Where? The Challenge of Multiculturalism.”

Staging Place: The Geography of Modern Drama. Ann Arbor: Michigan

University Press, 6226 . Print.

Chen, Fu Jen. “Frank Chin 1940 -.” Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature: Encyclopedia of Asian-American literature. Ed. Seiwoong Oh.

New York: Facts on File, 2007. 41- 42. Print.

Cashmore, Ellis, cont. Dictionary for Race and Ethnic Relations. 4th ed. London:

Routledge, 1996. Print.

Cheryan, Sapna, and Galen Bodenhausen. “Model Minority.” The Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity. Ed. Stephen M. Caliendo and Charlton D.

McIIwain. Abingdon, London: Routledge, 2011. 173-176.Print.

Cheung, King-Kok, ed. Introduction. Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000. 1-18.

Print.

135

Chi, Tsung. “Asian American Movement.” East Asian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO,

2005. Print.

Chin, Frank. Introduction. “Come All Ye Asian American writers of the Real and

the Fake.” Ed. Jeffery Paul Chan et al. The Big Aiiieeeee: An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature. New York: Meridan,

1991. 1- 29 . Print.

---. Chickencoop Chimaman and The Year of the Dragon. Seattle: University of

Washington Press. 1981.

De Leon, Lakandiwa M. “Filipinotown and the DJ Scene: Cultural

Expression and Identity Affirmation of Filipino American Youth in Los

Angeles.” Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity. Ed.

Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou. New York: Routledge, 2004. 191- 206. Print.

Danico, Mary Yu, and Franklin Ng. “Asian American Stereotypes.” Asian American Issues: Contemporary American Ethnic Issues. Westport, Conn:

Greenwood Press, 9002. Print.

---. Introduction. Asian American Issues: Contemporary American Ethnic Issues.

Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2004. Print.

---. “Asian American Literature: A Mirror of Community Concerns?” Asian

American Issues: Contemporary American Ethnic Issues. Westport, Conn:

Greenwood Press, 2004. Print.

De Ornellas, Kevin. “M. Butterfly.” Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature: Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature. Ed. Seiwoong Oh.

New York: Facts on File, 2007. 185- 187. Print.

Foley, Kathy. “Asian American Theatre.” The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre. Ed. Colin Chambers. London: Continuum, 2002.

45- 26. Print.

Fong, Timothy. Introduction. The Politics of the Visible in Asian North American Narratives. Eleanor Rose Ty. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,

9002. 3-30. Print.

136

Ford, Roderick O. “Conservative Supreme Court Jurisprudence: 1989- 1991.”

Labor Matters: The African American Labor Crisis, 1861-2010. Xlibris

Corporation, 2011. Print.

Fugita, steve. “Carl Sadakichi Hartmann: Author, Art Critic, Jounalist (1867-

1944)”. Ed. Hyung-Chan Kim et al. Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.

103-106. Print.

Fujino, Diane C. “Asian Americans and the Rise of a New Movement.”

Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Print.

Gotanda, Neil. “Multiculturalism and Racial Stratification.” Asian American Studies: A Reader. Ed. Jean Yu-Wu Shen and Min Song. New Brunswick,

NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000. 379- 390. Print.

Gotanda, Philip Kan. Yankee Dawg You Die. New York: Dramatists Play service,

1991.

Gray, Richard J. “Realism and Its Discontents Confronting the Real,

Stretching the Realistic in Drama.” A history of American literature.

Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Print.

Gudykunst, William B. “Asian American Ethnic Groups: Filipino Americans.” Asian American Ethnicity and Communication. Thousand Oaks, Calif.:

Sage Publications, 2001. 71- 76. Print.

Herrick, John Middlemist, and Paul H. Stuart, eds. “First Wave.” Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage

Publications, 2005. Print.

Hendrick, Pamela R. “Drama and Theater.” Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture. Ed. Gary W., McDonogh, Robert Gregg, and Cindy H.

Wong. London: Routledge, 2001. 355-357. Print

Houston, Velina Hasu, ed. Introduction. The Politics of Life: Four Plays.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. 1- 31. Print.

---. Foreword. Asian American Culture on Stage: The History of East West Players. New York: Garland. 6222 . xi- xiv. Print.

137

Huang, Guiyou. “Narrative Overview: Drama.” The Columbia Guide to Asian American literature since 1945. New York: Columbia University

Press, 2006. Print.

---. “ Ling-Ai-Li.” The Columbia Guide of Asian American Literature Since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Print.

---, ed. Preface. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature. 3

vols. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2009. Print.

Huang, Yunte. “The Multifarious Faces of the Chinese Language.” Transpacific Displacement: Ethnography, Translation, and Intertextual Travel in Twentieth- Century American Literature. Berkeley, University of California

Press, 2002. Print.

Ho, Wendy. “Outlaw Brotherhood: Culture Nationalism and the Politics

of Mother-Daughter Discourses." In Her Mother’s House: the Politics of Asian American Mother-Daughter Writing. Walnut Creek, California:

Altamira Press, 1999. Print.

Hong, Terry. “Asian American Literature.” What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature. Ed. Rafaela G. Castro, Edith Maureen Fisher and Terry Hong.

Detroit, MI: Gale, 1997. 411- 416. Print.

---. “Theatre.” The Asian-American Almanac: A Reference Work on Asians in the United States. Ed. Susan Gall and Irene Natividad. Detroit, Mich: Gale

Research, 1995. 573- 594. Print.

---. “Asian Americans.” The Columbia Companion to American History on Film: How the Movies Have Portrayed the American Past. Ed. Peter C. Rollins. New

York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 225-233. Print.

Hwang, David Henry. M.Butterfly. New York: Dramatists Play Service. 1988.

Imbarrato, Susan Clair, et al. “Asian American Literature.” Encyclopedia of American Literature 1607 to the Present. New York: Facts on File, 2008.

Print.

Inkelas, Karen Kurotsuchi . “Problem and Context.” Racial Attitudes and Asian pacific Americans: Demystifying the Model Minority. New York: Routledge,

2006. Print.

138

Ito, Robert B. “Philip Kan Gotanda.” Words Matter: Conversations with Asian

American Writers. Ed. King-Kok Cheung. Honolulu: University of Hawaii

Press, 2000. 173- 185. Print.

Kaplan, Randy Barbara. “Philip Kan Gotanda.” Asian American Playwrights: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Miles Xian Liu. Westport,

Conn: Greenwood Press.2002. 69- 88. Print.

---. “Elizabeth Wong”. Asian American playwrights: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Miles Xian Liu. Westport, Conn: Greenwood

Press, 2002. 347- 360. Print.

Kawahara, Debra M. “Asian American, A Term in Transition." Ed. Celia B.

Fisher and Richard M. Lerner. Encyclopedia of Applied Developmental Science. Vol. 1. Thousands Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2005. 92-93.

Print.

Kim, Elaine H. Preface. Asian American Literature: Introduction to the Writings

and Their Social Context. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982. Print.

---.“Chinatown Cowboys and Warrior Women Searching for a New Self-Image.”

Asian American Literature: Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982. Print.

---. “Multiple Mirrors and Many Images New Directions in Asian American

Literature.” Asian American Literature: Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982. Print.

Kim, Elizabeth S. “Asian American Theatre.” The Facts on File Companion to American Drama. 2

nd ed. Ed. Jackson R. Bryer and Mary C. Hartig. New

York: Facts on File, 2010. 36- 42. Print.

---. “David Henry Hwang (1957- ).” Asian American Playwrights: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Miles Xian Liu. Westport,

Conn: Greenwood Press. 126- 144. Print.

Kim, Hyung-Chan. Introduction. Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary. Ed. Hyung-Chan Kim et al. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,

1999. xiii- xviii. Print.

139

Klaver, Elizabeth. “The Mediatized Imaginary and the Critical Subject Position.” Performing Television: Contemporary Drama and Media Culture. Bowling

Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 2000. Print.

Kondo, Dorinne. Introduction. Asian American Drama: 9 Plays from the Multiethnic Landscape. Ed. Brain Nelson. New York: Applause Theatre

Books, 1997. ix - xiv. Print.

Kurahashi, Yuko. “The Politicization of Asian Americans: Expression of Asian

American Identity.” Asian American Culture on Stage: The History of East West Players. New York: Garland, 1999. Print.

---. “The First Production, Rashomon.” Asian American Culture on Stage: The History of East West Players. New York: Garland, 1999. Print.

Lassiter, Sybil M. “Asian Americans.” Cultures of Color in America: A Guide to Family, Religion, and Health. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print.

-Lawrence, Keith. “Frank Chin (1940- ).” The Facts on File Companion to the American Short Story. Ed. Abby H. p. Werlock. 2

nd ed. New York: Facts on

File, 2010. 138 - 139. Print.

Lawsin, Emily. "Philip Kan Gotanda 1949-” Ed. Brian Niiya. Japanese American history: an A-to-Z reference from 1868 to the present. New York,

Facts on File, 1993. Print.

Le, C. [ Cuong]. N. [Nguyen] “Glimpses into the Future: Interracial and

Interethnic Marriage.” Asian American Assimilation: Ethnicity, Immigration, and Socioeconomic Attainment. Ed. Steven J. Gold and Rubén

G. Rumbaut. New York: LFB Scholarly Pub, 2007 169- 199. Print.

---. “The History of Asian Immigration and Assimilation.” Asian American Assimilation: Ethnicity, Immigration, and Socioeconomic Attainment.Ed.

Steven J. Gold and Rubén G. Rumbaut. New York: LFB Scholarly

Pub, 2007. 15- 28. Print.

Lee, Esther Kim. Introduction. The Links and Locations of Asian American

Theatre. A History of Asian American Theatre. Vol. 26. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 9007. Print.

---. “Actors in the 1960s and 1970s.” A History of Asian American Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print.

140

---. “The Second Wave Playwrights.” Specific Authenticity and Philip Kan

Gotanda.” A History of Asian American Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2006. Print.

---. “Asian American Theatre before 1965.” Introduction. A History of Asian American Theatre. Vol. 26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2006. Print.

Lee, James Kyung-Jin. “Asian Americans.” The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Ed. Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2006. 174- 193. Print.

Lee, Joann Faung Jean. Introduction. Asian American Actors: Oral Histories from Stage Screen and Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000. 3- 15.

Print.

---. Preface. Asian American Actors: Oral Histories from Stage Screen and Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000. 1- 2. Print.

Lee, Josephine. “Critical Strategies for Reading Asian American Drama.”

Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997. Print.

---. “Speaking A Language That We Both Understand: Reconciling Feminism

and Cultural Nationalism In Asian American Theater.” Performing America: Cultural Nationalism in American Theater. Ed. Jeffrey D. Mason and J. Ellen

Gainor. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 139- 159. Print.

---. “The Seduction of the Stereotype.” Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage. Philadelphia: Temple University

Press, 1998. Print.

Lee, Kihan. "Philip Kan Gotanda." Seiwoong Oh, ed. Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature: Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature. New York:

Facts on File, 2007. 94. Print.

---. "Yankee Dawg You Die: Philip Kan Gotanda (1988)." Ed. Seiwoong Oh.

Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature: Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature. New York: Facts on File, 2007. 331-332. Print.

141

Lee, Stacey J., Nga-Wing Anjela Wong, and Alvin N. Alvarez. “The Model

Minority and the Perpetual Foreigner: Stereotypes of Asian Americans.”

Asian American Psychology: Current Perspectives. Ed. Nita Tewari and

Alvin Alvarez. New York: Psychology Press, 2009. 69- 84. Print.

Lei, Daphne. “Staging the Binary: Asian American Theatre in the Late

Twentieth Century”. A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Ed. David Krasner. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub: 2005. 301- 317.

Print.

Lester, Paul Martin and Susan Dente Ross, ed. Introduction. “Images That

Injure.” Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. Ed. Paul

Martin Lester and Susan Dente Ross. 2nd

. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press,

2003. 1-4. Print.

Li, Guofang, and Lihshing Wang, eds. Introduction. “The Old Myth in a New

Time.” Model Minority Myth Revisited: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Demystifying Asian American Educational Experiences. Charlotte, NC:

IAP, 2008. 1- 62. Print.

Lim, Shirley Geok-Lin, and Amy Ling, eds. Introduction. Reading the Literatures of Asian America. Asian American History and Culture. Philadelphia: Temple

University Press, 1992. 3- 9. Print.

Ling, Amy. “The Asian American Short Story.” The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story. Ed. Blanche H. Gelfant. New York:

Columbia University Press, 2000. 34- 41. Print.

Liu, Cindy H. et al. “Who Are Asian Americans? An Overview of History,

Immigration and Communities.” Asian American Psychology: Current Perspectives. Ed. Nita Tewari and Alvin N. Alvarez. New York: Psychology

Press, 2009. 1- 29. Print.

Liu, Miles Xian, ed. Preface. Asian American Playwrights: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2002. ix- xi. Print.

Lott, Juanita Tamayo. “Background.” Asian American from racial category to Multiple Identities. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1998. Print.

Lu, Jun. “David Henry Hwang (1957- ).” The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature. Vol. 1. Ed. Guiyou Huang. 3 vols. Westport,

Conn: Greenwood Press, 2009. 377-385. Print.

142

Manning, Amy Lillian, cont. “Elizabeth Wong (1958- ).”Encyclopedia of Asian- American Literature: Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature. Ed.

Seiwoong Oh. New York: Facts on File, 2007. 317. Print.

Meagher, Timothy J. "Racial and Ethnic Relations in America, 1945-2000." The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America. Ed.

Ronald H. Bayor. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 667- 706.

Print.

Min, Pyong Gap. “Settlement and Diversity.” Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues. Ed. Pyong Gap Min. 2

nd ed. Thousand Oaks, California:

Pine Forge Press, 2006. 32-53. Print.

Miyagawa, Chiori. “Brave, Bold, and Poetic: The New Generation of Asian

American Women Playwrights.” Women Playwrights of Diversity: A Bio-bibliographical Sourcebook. Jane T. Peterson and Suzanne Bennett.

Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 6226. 13- 16. Print.

Moody, Joann. “Extra Disadvantages for Colonized Minorities.” Faculty Diversity: Problems and Solutions. New York: Routledge Falmer, 2004.

Print.

Moser, Linda Trinh. “Multiculturalism and Globalization.” Research Guide to American Literature: Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present. Vol. 7.

Kathryn West and Linda Trinh Moser. New York: Facts On File: 2010. 85-

103. Print.

Moy, James. “David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly and Philip Kan Gotanda’s

Yankee Dawg You Die: Repositioning Chinese American Marginality on the

American Stage.” Critical Theory and Performance. Ed. Janelle G. Reinelt

and Joseph R. Roach. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. 79-

87. Print.

---. “Death of Asia on the American Field of Representation.” Reading the literatures of Asian Americans. Ed. Shirley Geok-Lin and Amy Ling.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. 349- 357. Print.

Murphy, Brenda. “Theatre.” The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Ed. Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2006. 411- 429. Print.

143

Nakanishi, Don Toshiaki. “Asian-American Movement.” ed. “Asian American

Movement.” Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics: Hispanic

Americans and Native Americans. Ed. Jeffery D. Schultz et al.Vol.2.

Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 2000. Print.

Niiya, Brain. “The Model Minority Discourse.” The Asian Pacific American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts. Ed. George J. Leonard. Vol

2901. New York: Garland, 2005. 36- 37. Print.

Noh, Eliza. “Asian American Female Suicide and Folklore.” Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife. Ed. Jonathan H. X. Lee and Kathaleen

M. Nadeau. Santa Barbra: ABC-CLIO, 2011. 10- 14. Print.

Oh, Seiwoong, ed. Introduction and Preface. “Challenges: Social Contexts and

Literary Aesthetics.” Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature: Encyclopedia of Asian-American literature. New York: Facts on File, 2007.

Print.

[[ Patell, Cyrus R. k. “Legacies of the sixties.” The Cambridge History of American Literature: Prose Writing 1940-1990. Vol 7. Ed. Sacvan Bercovitch.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 615- 752. Print.

---. “Comparative Racism and the Logic of Naturalization.” The Cambridge History of American Literature: Prose Writing 1940-1990. Vol. 7. Ed.

Sacvan Bercovitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 9002. 564-

591. Print.

Pettey, Janice Gow. “Asian Americans: Chinese American History.” Cultivating Diversity in Fundraising: Chinese American History. New York: John Wiley

& Sons, 2002. Print.

Postlewait, Thomas. “The Hieroglyphic Stage: American Theatre and Society,

Post-Civil War to 1945.” Vol. 2. The Cambridge history of American Theatre

1870- 1945. Ed. Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby. New York:

Cambridge University Press, 2007. 107-195. Print.

Pulido, Laura. “The Politicization of the Third World Left.” Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 2006. Print.

144

Rainer, Thom S. and Jess Rainer. “The Mediating Generation.” The Millennials: Connecting to America's Largest Generation. Nashville, Tenn: B&H Pub.

Group, 2011. Print.

Reimers, David M. “Asians in Hawaii and the United States.” Other Immigrants: The Global Origins of the American people. New York: New York University

Press, 2005. Print.

Saan, Gam. "The Chinese in 19th

Century America." Atlas of Asian American History. Ed. Monique Avakian. New York: Facts on File, 2002. 27- 52. Print.

Sacramento, Jocyl and Aristel de la Cruz. “Poverty.” Encyclopedia of Asian American Issues Today. Vol. 1. Ed. Wen-Chu Chen and Grace J. Yoo. 2

vols. Santa Barbara, Calif: Greenwood Press, 2010. 149- 156. Print.

Saddik, Annette J. “The Politics of Identity and Exclusion.” Contemporary American Drama: Edinburgh Critical Studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press, 2007. Print.

Schlote, Christiane. “Elizabeth Wong (1958- )”. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature. Ed. Guiyou Huang. 3 vols. Westport, Conn:

Greenwood Press, 2009. 994- 998. Print.

--- “Staging Heterogeneity: Contemporary Asian American Drama.” Asian American Literary Studies. Ed. Guiyou Hwang. Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press, 2005. 225-245. Print.

Shimakawa, Karen. “I’ll be here … Where you left me: Mimetic Abjection/Abject

Mimicry.” National abjection: the Asian American Body Onstage. Durham,

NC: Duke University Press, 2002. Print.

Shrake, Eunai Kim. “Unmasking the Self: Struggling with the Model Minority

Stereotype and lotus Blossom Image.” ‘‘Strangers’’ of the Academy: Asian Women Scholars in Higher Education. Ed. Guofang Li and Gulbahar H.

Beckett. Sterling, Va: Stylus Pub, 2006. 178- 194. Print.

Srikanth, Rajini. "Transnational Homepages: Safety in Multiple Addresses.” The World Next Door: South Asian American Literature and the Idea of America.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Print.

---. “Unsettling Asian American Literature: When More than America is in the

Heart.” Beyond the Borders: American Literature and Post-Colonial Theory.

Ed. Debora L. Madsen. London: Pluto Press, 2003. 92- 110. Print.

145

Shteir, Rachel. “Ethnic Theatre in America.” A Companion to Twentieth-Century

American Drama. Ed. David Krasner. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2005. 18

33. Print.

Uno, Roberta, ed. Introduction. Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,

1993. 1- 10. Print.

---, ed. “Elizabeth Wong: Letters to a Student Revolutionary.” Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women. Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press, 1993. Print.

---, ed. “Yankee Dawg You Die.” Monologues for Actors of Color: Men. New

York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Uyematsu, Amy “The Emergence of Yellow Power in America: Mistaken

Identity.” The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America. Ed. Roland H. Bayor. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

768- 775. Print.

Vorlicky, Robert. "Realizing Freedom: Risk, Responsibility and Individualization:

Yankee Dawg You Die, Philip Kan Gotanda." Act like a man: Challenging Masculinities in American Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,

1995. Print.

Wei, William. "A Commentary on Young Asian American Activists from

the 1960s to the Present." Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity. Ed. Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou. New York: Routledge, 2004.

922- 312. Print.

---. The Asian American Movement. Introduction. Philadelphia: Temple

University Press. Print.

Wilmeth, Don B., ed. “Asian American Theatre.” The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre. 2

nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 9006.

Print.

Wong, Elizabeth. Kimchee and Chitlins. Woodstock; IL, Dramatic Publishing

Company. 1996.

Xu, Wenying. “The Asian American Short Story.” A Companion to the American Short Story. Ed. Alfred Bendixen and James Nagal. Chichester,

U.K: Wiley- Blackwell, 2010, 436- 449. Print.

146

Yeh, Chiou-Ling. "Yellow Power: Race, Class, Gender, and Activism." Making an American Festival: Chinese New Year in San Francisco’s

Chinatown. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Print.

Yin, Xiao-Huang. “Multiple Voices and the “War of Worlds”: Contemporary

Chinese American Literature.” Chinese American Literature since the 6250s.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Print.

Yogi, Stan. “Philip Kan Gotanda.” The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature. Ed. Steven R. Serafin and Alfred Bendixen. New York:

Continuum, 2003. 455. Print.

Yu, Henry. Preface. “Migration and Knowledge Created about and by Asian

Americans.” Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. v- xii. Print.

---. Introduction. “The Locations of History.” Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2001. 5-12. Print.

[ Zeng, Li. “Asian American Literature.” Books and Beyond: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of New American Reading. Ed. Kenneth Womack. 4 vols.

Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2008. 66- 26. Print.

- Zhou, Xueping and Aimin Cheng. “Chinese American Drama.” The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Asian American literature. Ed. Guiyou Huang. 3 vols.

Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2009. 181-185. Print.

147

-Electronic Sources:

- BWW News Desk. "Silk Road Theatre Project & The Goodman Presents THE

DNA TRAIL, 3/2." Chicago.BroadwayWorld.com - Chicago's Premier Theater

Web Resource. 2 Mar. 2010. Web. 6 Dec.

2010.<http://chicago.broadwayworld.com/article/Silk_Road_Theatre_Project_The

_Goodman_Presents_THE_DNA_TRAIL_32_20100302>.

- "Elizabeth Wong: Chinese American Playwright Who Fuses Comedy and Social

Commentary." University at Albany - SUNY. 17 Mar. 2007. Web.6Dec.2010.

<http://www.albany.edu/writersinst/webpages4/archives/ewong.html>.

- Dunbar, Ann-Marie. "From ethnic to mainstream theater: negotiating 'Asian

American' in the plays of Philip Kan Gotanda." The Free Library. 01 January

2005. Web. 27 July 2011. <http://www.thefreelibrary.com/From ethnic to

mainstream theater: negotiating 'Asian American' in...-a0126556702>.

- Virginia M. Crane. "Yankee Dawg You Die." Masterplots II: Drama, Revised

Edition. Salem Press, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. Web. 29 May, 2011.

http://www.enotes.com/yankee-dawg-you-die-salem/yankee-dawg-you-die

Jones, Chad. “Philip Kan Gotanda's 'I Dream of Chang and Eng.'” 3 March 2011.

Web. 26 August 2011. sfgate.com. <http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-03-

03/entertainment/28648641_1_siamese-twins-chang-eng-bunker>.

Jarret, Charles. “‛I Dream of Chang and Eng’ opens at zellerback and ‘let’s

celebrate” was really great!’” 7 March 2011. Web. 26 August 2011.

charlesjarrettforallevents.blogspot.com.<http://charlesjarrettforallevents.blogspot.c

om/2011/03/i-dream-of-chang-and-eng-opens-at.html>.

“TDPS presents Philip Kan Gotanda’s newest play “I Dream of Chang and Eng” in

March” 3 February 2011. Web. 26 August 2011. tdps.berkeley.edu.

<http://tdps.berkeley.edu/blog/2011/02/tdps-presents-philip-kan-gotandas-newest-

play-i-dream-of-chang-and-eng-in-march/>