“A Ritual of Remembrance Keeping Her Memory Alive” : Cathy Song’s Picture Bride

The 1982winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, Cathy Song’s Picture Bride is located in the period of the avalanche of feminist writings by Asian American women writers. While a traditional ideal of femininity for Asian Americans has restrained women’s articulation of their own identities, Song recognizes that the relationship between feminism and ethnicity is not that of choosing one while discarding the other. Rather, through her writings, the poet embraces the heritage of her ancestors, believing that claiming her identity as an Asian American woman is inseparable from constructing her ethnic identity. Placing herself as a register of the history of her family as well as of Asian Americans at large, Song holds a “ritual of remembrance” to disclose and comfort the hidden subjects of history. Focusing on her best-known work, Picture Bride , this paper is going to examine the way in which Song unfolds a story restrained by major historiographies.