I was mesmerized by Jeff Yang’s article about “Asian Chick Lit” in today’s SF Chronicle. It describes the decline in “regular” (um, read “white”) chick lit at the same time as an explosion of Asian-American authors writing about young, professional, sexy Asian protagonists. Is one of them REALLY called China Dolls? Yes, it is. Cringe. Okay, I haven’t read the book, but the title alone had me wanting to claw my own eyes out.
Then there’s an Asian-American author who says:
“I’m an Asian American novelist who’s written a chick lit novel, but my book is not an ‘Asian American chick lit novel,’” says Julie Dam, a senior editor at People magazine whose foray into the genre, “Some Like It Haute,” was first published in hardcover a year ago February. “My character doesn’t have an ethnicity attached, and that’s a conscious decision: I wanted to think that on some level, we’ve moved beyond skin color, that we can tell universal stories.”
I had to think about it. What does that mean: “doesn’t have ethnicity attached.” That means WHITE. We’ve “moved beyond skin color?” Excuse me while I pass out into a puddle of my own vomit.
When I first started writing fiction, about ten thousand years ago, I also tended to “mask” my characters and present them “without ethnicity attached.” I was worried that nobody would be able to relate to them if they were too overtly ethnic. Well, after about a year of that I saw the internalized racism in THAT.
I was also dismayed to read that author Mia King is not really named Mia King. Her name is Darien Hsu Gee. It really bummed me out to discover this, because I had recently been reading “Mia King’s” blog and was liking it, happy for her that she was publishing her novel. Her explanation for choosing a much less “ethnic” name?
My real name is Darien Hsu Gee. I chose to write under a pen name because my husband, Darrin Gee, had a nonfiction golf book, “The Seven Principles of Golf: Mastering The Mental Game On and Off the Golf Course,” being released a month after “Good Things” (how’s that for coincidence?!). I thought writing under a pen name would eliminate any confusion.
She thought golfers would confuse her with her husband? Uh, okayyyy. Nice explanation. The whole thing reeks of “I’m not really Asian! I’m just like everybody else!” and frankly, it makes me sad.
Young Asian-American authors talk about wanting to move “beyond” the Joy Luck Club, but if this is progress, I’ll eat my computer mouse.
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Jenny wrote:
I’m alittle ‘guarded’ on this particular subject, mainly because I have never read Asian chick lit.
I’m going to be honest now, and say that I view white and yellow people with a lot of contrasts (well, who doesn’t?). Meaning, despite being Chinese I am very much a banana.
I don’t think the whole transition between ‘white’ chick lit authors and ‘asian’ chick lit authors and books is bad.. I think I suppose the ethnic culture differences.
I’m not sure if that didn’t make much sense.
I’m not even that sure on my whole opinion on the subject, as I said, I haven’t really looked too much into it.
And being that I’m fourteen and still quite naive to all these.. I think I’ll be quiet now.
Posted on 13-Feb-07 at 3:37 pm | Permalink
Racy Li wrote:
I am an Asian American author with a distinctly Asian pseudonym. However, I do understand the motivations behind Dam’s attempt to market her works as beyond ethnicities. There’s been a big debate in the romance-blogland community about how black romances are often segregated into their own section, with the result that many avid readers (and I’m talking about readers who buy 5-10 books a month) had never picked up a black romance.
In contrast, the number of Asian-Americans involved in the romance genre as writers (and doing pretty well writing under non-ethnic names I believe is quite high. (Of course this is anecdotally, and based on my own experience).
Of course, I’ve also noticed that the romance genre seems to have a particularly high number of Asian-Americans (and Asians) heavily involved in the industry, who from editors to writers, to well-respected independent reviewers.
Posted on 13-Feb-07 at 6:35 pm | Permalink
susan wrote:
Racy - (sigh). You do have a point there. Asian American authors shouldn’t be consigned to the ethnic ghetto, but at the same time I feel like it’s not right to pretend race doesn’t matter - in fiction OR in life.
Jenny, it’s great to hear from a 14 yr old reader! I’m in the midst of writing a YA-ish (young adult) novel with Asian American protagonists - I don’t want to hit readers over the head with it, but I also don’t pretend that they’re “generic” people.
Posted on 13-Feb-07 at 9:49 pm | Permalink
Christine wrote:
I’ve long debated whether or not calling attention to one’s ethnicity is important in ‘mainstream’ culture. As a person who has worked in ethnic media for quite sometime, it was very disconcerning to find that some Asian artists actually shying away from the very fact that they are of Asian descent. The reason, “Oh, we’re not going that way.” as if ‘going that way’ is shameful. I think it is IMPORTANT, that artists of Asian descent be proud of who they are, because it is only by being proud of who their are, encompassing the very fine line that we walk being that of Asian or [insert any ethnicity here] and North American.
I’m not opposed to using pen names, just that particular author’s explanation was a very weak one.
Posted on 14-Feb-07 at 7:39 am | Permalink
Jenny wrote:
Susan, nice one - could I grab a small excerpt when you’re ‘done’?
Christine, “because it is only by being proud of who the[y] are” that would cross a fine line of ‘what’ you are and ‘who’ you are. I would stick ethnicity into the ‘what’ criteria and the actual culture in to the ‘who’. Just saying, your comment didn’t make too much sense to me..
Posted on 14-Feb-07 at 12:48 pm | Permalink
Racy Li wrote:
“I’ve long debated whether or not calling attention to one’s ethnicity is important in ‘mainstream’ culture. ”
Christine, I think it depends on how you do it and what your target audience is. There’s nothing wrong in defining yourself as an Asian-American artist, with your ethnicity as your defining characteristic. But in doing so, you may alienate the mainstream majority who feel squeamish at anything to do with race.
Susan, I’m not saying that we should pretend that race doesn’t matter when it does, but from a pragmatic standpoint, when it comes to marketing, people are only going to remember one to two things about you, no matter what you’re doing whether it’s fiction or songwriting. You have to choose what you want them to remember very carefully. You can choose the obvious (like ethnicity, which people are probably going to remember anyway) or you can choose something else that awakens their interest and sticks in their mind about you as a person.
Posted on 14-Feb-07 at 2:25 pm | Permalink
Christine wrote:
Jenny, I’ll rephrase that last sentence simply because I’m actually not accustomed to writing and editing comments in such a small box without being able to preview it. - and I actually did catch my mistake as soon as I posted it, but hoped no one noticed - darn!
What I meant to say, is that I feel it is important that artists of Asian descent be outwardly proud of their ethnicity so names like Hsu Gee and Racy Li are the norm and aren’t relegated to such categorization. And that encompasses walking a very fine line with respecting one’s ancenstry with, in this case, being able to properly articulate that in the mainstream. - judging by the quotes above, neither of the 2 authors were successful at it.
I hope that’s clear, sometimes my thoughts get ahead of my typing skills.
Posted on 14-Feb-07 at 2:47 pm | Permalink
Christina wrote:
It’s sad that Americans think it’s risky to market Asians because they don’t think mainstream Americans and the general public wouldn’t be able to relate to a yellow face. The argument is weak. Then how do white suburban teenagers relate to hip hop or rap music? They seem to relate just fine. Heck, I never watched Asian movies until I was in my twenties and I was able to relate to White movies just fine for the first twenty years of my life. Why couldn’t the reverse be true? Why wouldn’t White/(insert ethnicity here) be able to relate to Asians? It’s seriously time to stop ignoring our ethnicity in order to be more “relatable” or marketable. I never saw Tupac writing lyrics about White people to reach a broader audience…he did what he did…and look how many people of all colors found his music prolific? Why did Julie Dam have to “hide” her ethnicity in her book? If you’re a writer, don’t compromise yourself for the “benefit” of others. Create your art the way you like and see fit. If all of us minorities had the attitude that Julie Dam had about creating indecernable ethnic characters, we as Americans will always view “White” as the standard, the norm…the ONLY, when in actuality, America is the most diverse country in the world. We need to REFLECT that. I went to live overseas in Asia, and none of them could grasp the idea that I was AMERICAN–because they were accustomed and brainwashed by the American movies and media that our country is either black or white.
Posted on 17-Feb-07 at 10:32 pm | Permalink
rksingh wrote:
Though I do not belong to the ‘chickliterati’ class of writers, I would like to invite them to visit my blogs:
http://profrksingh.blogspot.com
http://rksinghpoet.blogspot.com
http://rksingh.blogspot.com
and share their comments on my poetry.
Thanks
R K Singh
Posted on 22-Feb-07 at 2:42 am | Permalink
burnt bread wrote:
I see your point entirely but at the same time I understand the writers’ desire not to be pigeon-holed as ‘Asian writers’, and to over-ride the common expectation that if you are Asian, then you must write books about being Asian.
Posted on 20-Mar-07 at 2:28 am | Permalink
Cynthia wrote:
I know I’m a little late in this. I’m an Asian Canadian (specifically CBC–Canadian Born Chinese) who is banana/YASP (ok, not sure if I qualify as a YASP seeing that I’m Catholic, but I went to a Protestant prep school for years). In my debut novel, Aspirations, one of the sidekicks is Asian, and unlike your typical rebellious Asian 20-something she DOES NOT want to join a rock band. Guess what she wants to do? She wants to be a “proper young lady” Yes! As in blue-blooded proper. Am I the first Asian writer to write about this?? Do you think it’s a good idea??
Posted on 19-Jul-07 at 12:29 pm | Permalink