Transnationalism and the Asian American Heroine

This collection examines transnational Asian American women characters in various fictional narratives. It analyzes how certain heroines who are culturally rooted in Asian regions have been transformed and re-imagined in America, playing significant roles in Asian American literary studies as well as community life. The interdisciplinary essays display refreshing perspectives in Asian American literary studies and transnational feminism from four continents.

Lan Dong is an assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois, Springfield. She is the author or editor of three books and has written a number of journal articles and book chapters on Asian American literature, children’s literature, and popular culture.

Edited by Lan Dong

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 239
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2010
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4632-2
eISBN: 978-0-7864-6208-7
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      v
Introduction: Heroines of Transnational Asian America
Lan Dong      1

Part I: Myth, History and Beyond
Of Princesses Pari and Fox Girls: Nora Okja Keller’s Transnational Performance of Korean Histories and Myths
Silvia Schultermandl      9
Water Birth: Domestic Violence and Monstrosity in Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child
Nancy Kang      26
Between Ruination and Reconciliation: Dragon Princesses, Cambodian American Heroines, and Loung Ung’s Lucky Child
Cathy J. Schlund-Vials      46

Part II: Battles, Rituals and Worship
From Female Self-Sacrifice to Korean Freedom Fighter: Yu Guan Soon in Theresa Cha’s Dictée
Karen An-hwei Lee      63
Merlinda Bobis: The Transnational Filipina Warrior Between the Postcolonial Exotic and the Babaylan/Catalonan
Marie-Therese C. Sulit      82
Mulan Against Gwan Gung: Performing Myths on a Transnational Stage
Lan Dong      103

Part III: Multination, Transnation and Communities
Re-Imagining Happily-Ever-After in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine
Amy N. Nishimura      118
Adopting a Different Posture and Relocating One’s Roots: The Trung Legend in Vietnamese American Narratives
Tina Lynn Powell      134
The Nicole Subic Rape Case and the Chingada in the Philippine Imaginary
Danicar Mariano      152

Part IV: (Un)Spoken Subjects, Cross-Cultural Heroines and Media
Lost in Translation: American Critical Audience and the Transnational Chinese Swordswoman
Catherine Gomes      168
Phoolan Devi: The Primordial Tradition of the Bandit Queen
J. Sunita Peacock      187
Translating Mother’s Tongue(s) and Traveling Bodies: Palimpsest and Diaspora in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior
Pei-Ju Wu      203

About the Contributors      221
Index      225