Alien Encounters: Popular Culture in Asian America

by Mimi Thi Nguyen (Editor), Mimi Thi Nguyen (Editor)

Alien Encounters showcases innovative directions in Asian American cultural studies. In essays exploring topics ranging from pulp fiction to multimedia art to import-car subcultures, contributors analyze Asian Americans’ interactions with popular culture as both creators and consumers. Written by a new generation of cultural critics, these essays reflect post-1965 Asian America; the contributors pay nuanced attention to issues of gender, sexuality, transnationality, and citizenship, and they unabashedly take pleasure in pop culture. This interdisciplinary collection brings together contributors working in Asian American studies, English, anthropology, sociology, and art history. They consider issues of cultural authenticity raised by Asian American participation in hip hop and jazz, the emergence of an orientalist “Indo-chic” in U.S. youth culture, and the circulation of Vietnamese music variety shows. They examine the relationship between Chinese restaurants and American culture, issues of sexuality and race brought to the fore in the video performance art of a Bruce Lee–channeling drag king, and immigrant television viewers’ dismayed reactions to a Chinese American chef who is “not Chinese enough.” The essays in Alien Encounters demonstrate the importance of scholarly engagement with popular culture. Taking popular culture seriously reveals how people imagine and express their affective relationships to history, identity, and belonging. Contributors . Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Kevin Fellezs, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Joan Kee, Nhi T. Lieu, Sunaina Maira, Martin F. Manalansan IV, Mimi Thi Nguyen, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, Sukhdev Sandhu, Christopher A. Shinn, Indigo Som, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Oliver Wang

Genres: Nonfiction

376 pages, Paperback

First published March 27, 2007

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I took a class with the two editors and had another class with the essayist Sandhu.

This essay collection is completely uneven. While some of the essays are powerfully moving, aware of their subject position, and able to create a point about Asian American racialization, others are academic for the sake of academic, hoping to extricate something out of nothing.

I think this book is important but not to be read through completely, and I hope that instead of becoming a standard for Asian pop culture critique it serves more as a warning. The introduction (which should not be read) is overly academic and stilted, talking up about topics that are comfortable without being inundated with critical theory. Which becomes indicative of the essays that don't work namely Performing Culture in Diaspora, Indo-Chic (probably the worst in that the author contradicts herself and uses support that doesn't actually support her thesis) and aspects of several others.

I wanted to delve in and know that the author was equally transfixed with a topic. Standouts are Sandhu's Placelessness essay, Asian America Auto / Biographies, Bruce Lee I Love You, and the final brilliant essay Race and Software which receives bonus points for referencing Netscape. Remember Netscape?

[Minh-Ha · Rating 4 out of 5]

some of the best work on APA pop culture today -- also, the editors are HOT!