What do you think?
Rate this book
Imagine Otherwise: On Asian Americanist Critique
Imagine Otherwise is an incisive critique of the field of Asian American studies. Recognizing that the rubric "Asian American" elides crucial differences, Kandice Chuh argues for reframing Asian American studies as a study defined not by its subjects and objects, but by its critique. Toward that end, she urges the foregrounding of the constructedness of "Asian American" formations and shows how this understanding of the field provides the basis for continuing to use the term "Asian American" in light of—and in spite of—contemporary critiques about its limitations. Drawing on the insights of poststructuralist theory, postcolonial studies, and investigations of transnationalism, Imagine Otherwise conceives of Asian American literature and U.S. legal discourse as theoretical texts to be examined for the normative claims about race, gender, and sexuality that they put forth. Reading government and legal documents, novels including Carlos Bulosan's America Is in the Heart , John Okada's No-No Boy , Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life , Ronyoung Kim's Clay Walls , and Lois Ann Yamanaka's Blu's Hanging , and the short stories "Immigration Blues" by Bienvenido Santos and "High-Heeled Shoes" by Hisaye Yamamoto, Chuh works through Filipino American and Korean American identity formation and Japanese American internment during World War II as she negotiates the complex and sometimes tense differences that constitute 'Asian America' and Asian American studies.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
6 people are currently reading
131 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 23, 2024
This text took me places I didn’t know it would.
January 9, 2025
9 ‘To imagine otherwise is not about imagining as the other, but rather, is about imagining the other differently.’
9 ‘Imagine Otherwise argues that current conditions call for conceiving Asian American studies as a subjectless discourse. I mean subjectlessness to create the conceptual space to prioritize difference by foregrounding the discursive constructedness of subjectivity.’
148 ‘To address, account for, and accommodate difference, we must remember that there is no common subject of Asian American studies; there are only infinite differences that we discursively cohere into epistemological objects [...] Because the legitimacy of Asian American studies has for so long been and continues yet to be challenged, the temptation exists to argue its merits by pointing to a common, understudied object, the ‘‘Asian American,’’ whom we narrate into legibility through a narrative of identity.’
9 ‘Imagine Otherwise argues that current conditions call for conceiving Asian American studies as a subjectless discourse. I mean subjectlessness to create the conceptual space to prioritize difference by foregrounding the discursive constructedness of subjectivity.’
148 ‘To address, account for, and accommodate difference, we must remember that there is no common subject of Asian American studies; there are only infinite differences that we discursively cohere into epistemological objects [...] Because the legitimacy of Asian American studies has for so long been and continues yet to be challenged, the temptation exists to argue its merits by pointing to a common, understudied object, the ‘‘Asian American,’’ whom we narrate into legibility through a narrative of identity.’
December 22, 2020
I think this book strikes a good balance between being original without simply being polemic. Rather than just say the category of Asian (American) is made up, it instead asks what we do knowing that it's made up and answers that question in an interesting way. I like the suggestion that we might read the category as a "metaphor for resistance and racism" (although I might amend that to resistance to racism, but it's not my project). What I'm taking away from engagement with multiple subfields within Critical Race Theory is that Asian American theory in particularity is very concerned with ideas of ethnicity and foreigness that you don't see in, say, Black studies. I think this books use of transnationalism was a good way to think about that and one that I may import into my own work.
May 3, 2022
I really enjoyed the questions of subject hood and representation. I did not care as much for the literary theory.
January 1, 2011
“If we accept a priori that Asian American studies is subjectless, then rather than looking to complete the category “Asian American,” to actualize it by such methods as enumerating various components of differences (gender, class, sexuality, religion, and so on), we are positioned to critique the effects of the various configurations of power and knowledge through which the term comes to have meaning.”
Imagine Otherwise argues that Asian American Studies become a “subjectless” field of study. Rather than studying “Asian Americans” and thus having debates that rely on a definitive definition of Asian American (with the attendant problems with authenticity and essentialism arising from such definitions), Chuh asks that Asian American Studies be known for its critique – for its study of Asian American as discursive category – its deconstructive approach to identity. She blends literary analysis (predominately of novels) with discursive analysis of legal cases and argues that recognizing the “a priori meaninglessness” of Asian American identity does not require dispensation with the term for the field. Another problem with subjecthood for Chuh is the way it “bears the legacy of Enlightenment liberalism’s celebration of the nation-state.” As her argument makes clear, justice is not compatible with any celebration of the nation-state and justice for Asian American Studies cannot mean inclusion in the nation.
The first chapter examines the importance of considering sexuality as well as race in Asian American Studies by examining the construction of Filipino identity in the writings of Carlos Buloan and Bienvenido Santos.
The second chapter examines transnationnalism in the context of Japanese American internment. She suggests the limitatiations of a transnational critique by pointing out the way internment relied on a certain type of transnationality (the substitution of Japanese American for Japan) while also highlighting its possibilities for conceptualizing identities outside of the nation-state. The reading here is grounded in several internment cases as well as Okada’s No No Boy and Yamamoto’s “High Heel Shoes.”
The third chapter looks at geography in constructions of Korean and Korean American identity. Specifically she argues that Asian Americanists work to distinguish between “Asians in Asia” and “Asian Americans” contributes to an American imperialist perspective that relies on the reading of Asia as other. Kuhn develops this argument by contrasting Kim’s Clay Walls with Lee’s A Gesture Life .
The discussion of the role of territoriality in naturalizing the nation was incredibly useful for my own project. As Chuh writes, “Positing the naturalness of the relationship between the native-born and the nation, such an ideology depends upon territoriality for coherence and, more specifically, upon a spatialized logic that holds as discretely and naturally distinct “here” and “there.”
The fourth chapter is a discussion of the possibilities of postcolonial critique for Asian American Studies in part through an extended discussion of Blu’s Hanging .
Imagine Otherwise argues that Asian American Studies become a “subjectless” field of study. Rather than studying “Asian Americans” and thus having debates that rely on a definitive definition of Asian American (with the attendant problems with authenticity and essentialism arising from such definitions), Chuh asks that Asian American Studies be known for its critique – for its study of Asian American as discursive category – its deconstructive approach to identity. She blends literary analysis (predominately of novels) with discursive analysis of legal cases and argues that recognizing the “a priori meaninglessness” of Asian American identity does not require dispensation with the term for the field. Another problem with subjecthood for Chuh is the way it “bears the legacy of Enlightenment liberalism’s celebration of the nation-state.” As her argument makes clear, justice is not compatible with any celebration of the nation-state and justice for Asian American Studies cannot mean inclusion in the nation.
The first chapter examines the importance of considering sexuality as well as race in Asian American Studies by examining the construction of Filipino identity in the writings of Carlos Buloan and Bienvenido Santos.
The second chapter examines transnationnalism in the context of Japanese American internment. She suggests the limitatiations of a transnational critique by pointing out the way internment relied on a certain type of transnationality (the substitution of Japanese American for Japan) while also highlighting its possibilities for conceptualizing identities outside of the nation-state. The reading here is grounded in several internment cases as well as Okada’s No No Boy and Yamamoto’s “High Heel Shoes.”
The third chapter looks at geography in constructions of Korean and Korean American identity. Specifically she argues that Asian Americanists work to distinguish between “Asians in Asia” and “Asian Americans” contributes to an American imperialist perspective that relies on the reading of Asia as other. Kuhn develops this argument by contrasting Kim’s Clay Walls with Lee’s A Gesture Life .
The discussion of the role of territoriality in naturalizing the nation was incredibly useful for my own project. As Chuh writes, “Positing the naturalness of the relationship between the native-born and the nation, such an ideology depends upon territoriality for coherence and, more specifically, upon a spatialized logic that holds as discretely and naturally distinct “here” and “there.”
The fourth chapter is a discussion of the possibilities of postcolonial critique for Asian American Studies in part through an extended discussion of Blu’s Hanging .
July 15, 2012
Chuh pushes for a "subjectless" Asian American studies that avoids focusing on identity. Using post structuralism as her guidepost, she argues that the field should be understood as constituted by shifting difference rather than a stable, essentialized, homogenous sense of "Asian American." She frames transnationalism and the specific example or Filipino Americans to explain the difference inherent to Asian America, and presents her literary texts as theorizing "Asian American" as a term designed to evoke a long history of both racism and resistance. Seminal text for broadening the AsAm field.
December 15, 2012
Out of all the Asian American literary theory I've read this semester, this was by far one of the worst. It has absolutely no purpose, other than to try to propose the notion that AAL is a "subjectless" discourse, which is a concept she never fully or clearly articulates.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews