The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology

by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim (Editor), Mayumi Tsutakawa (Editor)

The first and best Asian American women's anthology, edited by Shirley Geok-lin Lim and Mayumi Tsutakawa.

Poetry. We are Americans now, we live in the tundra / Marilyn Chin --
Into such assembly ; A Rose of Sharon / Myung Mi Kim --
Excerpts from Proud upon an alien shore / Rose Furuya Hawkins --
Go to Ahmedabad ; Muliebrity / Sujata Bhatt --
At Muktinath / Chitra Divakaruni --
Family photos : black and white : 1960 / Virginia R. Cerenio --
The handbook of sex of the plain girl ; Wintermelons / Marian Yee --
Heat in October / Kyoko Mori --
The club / Mitsuye Yamada --
For an Asian woman who says my poetry gives her a stomachache / Nellie Wong --
Legacy / Stephanie Sugioka --
Father's belt / Shalin Hai-Jew --
After delivering your lunch ; Higashiyama crematorium, November 16, 1983 ; The way April leads to autumn / Lynne Yamaguchi Fletcher --
On being in the Midwest ; On the fly / Diana Chang --
Zhoukoudian bride's harvest / Carolyn Lau --
Currents ; Downtown Seattle in the fog / Tina Koyama --
On such a day / Song-jook Park ; translated by Hyun-jae Yee Sallee --
untitled ; Whenever you're cornered, the only way out is to fight / Merle Woo --
San Juan ; Toads mate and father cleans the pool / Myrna Peña Reyes --
The song of bullets / Jessica Hagedorn --
Duration of water ; Chronicle / Mei-mei Berssenbrugge --
Children are color-blind / Genny Lim --
Standing in the doorway, I watch the young child sleep ; Eleven a.m. on my day off, my sister phones desperate for a babysitter / Sharon Hashimoto --
Learning to swim / Arlene Naganawa --
Red / Jean Yamasaki Toyama --
Letter from Turtle Beach / Susan K.C. Lee --
Sewing woman / Alison Kim --
Pantoun for Chinese women ; Visiting Malacca / Shirley Geok-lin Lim. Prose. Yellow mittens and early violets / Kyoko Mori --
Tears of autumn / Yoshiko Uchida --
Two deserts / Valerie Matsumoto --
Autumn gardening / Siu Wai Anderson --
A letter for Dar / Susan K.C. Lee --
Siko / Marianne Villanueva --
Native daughter / Shirley Geok-lin Lim --
Gussuk / Mei Mei Evans --
Last night / Fae Myenne Ng --
The Oriental contingent / Diana Chang --
Miné Okubo : an American experience / Betty LaDuke --
Paths upon water / Tahira Naqvi --
Sari petticoats / Talat Abbasi --
To rise above ; My only gods / Anjana Appachana. Art. Obachan Hatta, Kailua-Kona fields ; Obachan Hatta, Kaimalino housing ; Obachan Matano, Honolulu / Lori Kayo Hatta --
Self portrait ; Portrait of a Japanese girl ; Rice eaters ; Garden ; Chinese family / Tomie Arai --
Back of the bus, 1953 ; American friend ; Echoes of Gold Mountain ; Whirl war / Yong Soon Min --
All Orientals look alike ; All Orientals look alike (detail) ; The last supper / Roberta May Wong --
Manning the shroud ; A procession / Patti Warashina --
Cactus heart ; Fool's play ; Desert ; Piano solo / Judy Hiramoto --
Fish jumping / Carol Matsuyoshi --
Ring of forgotten knowledge / Elaine S. Yoneoka --
Mamala the surf rider ; Samansabadra / Mayumi Oda --
Kite ; Baek-do / Myung Kim Oh --
untitled / Alison Kim --
To Winnie Mandela / Betty Nobue Kano --
Carry me back to Old Virginny ; Tatooed geta with two states / Masako Miyata --
Girl with vase of flowers ; Cat with flags ; Drawings from Citizen 13660 / Miné Okubo. Reviews. Picture bride / Cathy Song, [reviewed by] Shirley Geok-lin Lim --
Asian-American literature : an introduction to the writings & their social context / Elaine H. Kim, [reviewed by] Shirley Geok-lin Lim --
Obasan / Joy Kogawa, [reviewed by] Shirley Geok-lin Lim --
Dangerous music / Jessica Hagedorn, [reviewed by] Jessica Saiki --
What Matisse is after / Diana Chang, [reviewed by] Janice Bishop --
In the city of contradictions / Fay Chiang, [reviewed by] Marian Yee --
Dreams in Harrison Railroad Park / Nellie Wong, [reviewed by] Marian Yee --
Camp notes and other poems / Mitsuye Yamada, [reviewed by] Marian Yee --
Thousand pieces of gold / Ruthanne Lum McCunn, [reviewed by] Margo P. Harder --
Wings of stone / Linda Ty-Casper, [reviewed by] Marianne Villanueva --
Beyond Manzanar : views of Asian American womanhood / Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, [reviewed by] Amy Ling --
With silk wings : Asian American women at work / Elaine H. Kim, Janice Otani, [reviewed by] Kit Quan --
This bridge called my back : writings by radical women of color / edited by Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, [reviewed by] Julia Watson --
Crossing the peninsula and other poems ; No man's grove; Another country and other stories / Shirley Lim, [reviewed by] Phyllis Edelson --
Summits move with the tide ; The heat bird / Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, [reviewed by] Shalin Hai-Jew --
Cruelty ; Killing floor ; Sin / t Ai, [reviewed by] Shalin Hai-Jew --
Dwarf bamboo / Marilyn Chin, [reviewed by] Shalin Hai-Jew --
Angel Island prisoner 1922 / Helen Chetin, [reviewed by] Michelle Yokoyama

Genres: Poetry, Asian American, American History, LGBT, Fiction

290 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Lim is a professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has also taught internationally at the National University of Singapore, the National Institute Education of Nanyang Technological University, and was the Chair Professor at the University of Hong Kong where she also taught poetry and creative writing. She has authored several books of poems, short stories, and criticism, and serves as editor and co-editor of numerous scholarly works. Lim is a cross-genre writer, although she identifies herself as a poet.

Reviews

[Tomika · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book helped me discover Asian American feminist writers whose works I’m thrilled to read and wished I learned about much earlier in life (such as Nellie Wong and Mitsuye Yamada).

[ryo narasaki · Rating 4 out of 5]

no such thing as "asian american woman"
shirley lim is awesome despite being v intellectual
thinking too much about identity can make you blind but it's a beautiful process

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of stories of stories and poems written by Asian women.

[Beverly]

Very good book about Asian American Women short stories, poetry, and art work.