CARVING OUT A PLACE IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: AMERICAN AUTHORS OF CHINESE, JAPANESE, AND KOREAN DESCENT

Abstract

Asian American authors have been producing works for children for more than a century, adding to the diversity and sophistication of the body of children’s literature. Critics ascribe the development of Asian American works for children to the success of the civil rights movement and the subsequent ethnic awareness that brought about multiculturalism in the fields of education and children’s books. The growth of Asian American children’s literature, however, is rarely visible in marketplaces, and Asian American authors’ works have received scant scholarly attention or criticism. The critical attention they have received is often couched as complaints concerning their literary value. Using critical multiculturalism as a framework, however, sheds new light on some Asian American authors and their narratives, illuminating their literary treatment of racial hierarchy and material inequalities. Such a critical framework reveals how these authors demonstrate Asian Americans’ love for America. These authors salvage moments of Asian American historical experiences that might otherwise be buried or dismissed in traditional US history. They also reveal how the myth of the model minority has served to marginalize Americans with Asian faces, and recount how Asian American children develop culturally hybrid identities through ongoing negotiations of conflicts between the mainstream culture and their ethnic cultures. In their narratives, these authors make it clear that they are as American as they are Asian. To demonstrate the way Asian American authors narrate Asian American experiences in children’s books, this dissertation examines six representative texts: Dragonwings by Laurence Yep and Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata for Asian Americans’ historicity in the US, A Step from Heaven by An Na and Beacon Hill Boys by Ken Mochizuki for dissolving the model minority ideal, and Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time by Lisa Yee and Project Mulberry by Linda Sue Park for Asian American children as cultural hybrids. In addition to socio-political analyses of these texts, this dissertation also interrogates the literary aesthetics these authors employ. These authors maintain a striking balance between artistic mastery and their messages. Their literary techniques help these texts appeal to a broad readership, leading readers to empathize with Asian American children and disrupting readers ideological notions regarding American history, America as a land of equal opportunity, and Asian Americans themselves.