IDENTITY OF WRITERS -- is there a Chinese American literature? An exploratory question.

IDENTITY OF WRITERS

Identity of writers




August 23, 2010



My wife watches a lot of movies and I almost never do. She asked me what I wanted to see so that we can see a movie together. So, we order Roshomon by Akira Kurosawa which was a crime story told by several perspectives. Essentially it was the rape of a Japanese woman and the murder of her Samurai husband told by 4 points of view. This is purported to say that truth is relative or that “objectivity” is to be questioned. However, knowing Kurosawa’s political point of view, I would rather say that this is a film about identity. It is the disruption of a culture – namely the Samurai culture of Japan by whatever forces this crime depicts. To me, it is the gunboat politics of Commodore Perry. One may differ with me of course and he or she is welcome to do so.

IDENTITY -- a fundamental property of all things

Identity --- that which resists annihilation, is a fundamental property and the drive of all things to remain what they are.



A writer is someone who has an identity. Who is the writer? Is he an ink fish that spews ink to hide himself or is he someone that really comes through as a point of view of a sector of reality?



Who does the writer purport to represent and is he really honest about it? One does not become a serious reader without taking the writer's identity into consideration.



Truth is a modal notion. Some people would argue that truth is absolute, that the truth is the same of all time and of all places. Others argue that truth is of this time and of this place. This is what is meant by the modal proposition “in what mode is this proposition true?” Or, in other words, in what context is an expression or a statement true? Or, more broadly, in what possible worlds, can an event or an occurrence of something be realized?



Speaking in this vein, it is easy to see that the notion of identity enters into the discussion of truth. That is to say, whose truth? The writer often speaks or purports to or pretends to speak the truth. Supposedly, journalism as a profession is more truthful than books of fiction.



There are all kinds of writers and there are all kinds of works written. Since identity is such an intractable subject, I will use it in a very narrow and specific sense as it applies to literature, in the old-fashioned definition of the word. Literature is the study of life. To this end, I require that the writer at least metaphorically speak the truth about life.



Since it is the task of philosophy to assume very little, I will assume that despite the claim that an Chinese-American literature exists and is perhaps thriving, I want to make an investigation into it whether this is so, to what extent can we say that a genuine Chinese-American literature exists and not a mere isomorphic copy of the dominant American literature that is large white and middle-class. I will also argue that to be a genuine “minority” literature that writing has to have an identity outside that of the mainstream writing, often at odds with it, and it must rise above itself to include the mainstream literature to achieve “universality.” It is like the Native American saying: you drew a circle to keep me out, and I drew a larger circle to keep you in.













Koon Woon

Seattle, WA