동일성과 차이 사이에서

Between Sameness and Difference : Teaching Asian American Literature

Teaching Asian American literature in a Korean classroom can encounter major difficulties in persuading students that Asian American literature is indeed American literature. Assuming an easy conflation of Asian and Asian American literature, due to their historical and cultural consanguinity, students tend to consider Asian American literature too Asian, and therefore not qualified to be American literature. Hence, while the redefining of American literature is urgently called for, it is important to give Korean students an American history lesson—not to awaken them to the official narrative of America that has revolved around white normativity, but to help them understand the notion of race and subsequent alienation from which they are exempted in the Korean context. Beginning with Sui Sin Far, arguably the first Asian American writer at the turn of nineteenth century, and then Jade Snow Wong and Nora Okja Keller, and finally Ishle Yi Park, this paper presents the various ways in which Asian American literary texts are read with emphasis on their “Americanness” which has been conventionally overlooked. In the course of examining the Asian American yearning for America, positional disparity inevitably arises to the degree that it neutralizes consanguinity between Asians and Asian Americans. By acknowledging the difference as well as sameness which has been taken for granted, Korean students can finally begin their exploration of Asian American texts defined as American literature.