Imagine Otherwise: On Asian Americanist Critique Book

"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 .