Table of Contents

1 Introduction: The Asian American Ghetto 1
2 “Like a Slum”: Ghettos and Ethnic Enclaves, Ghetto and Genre 25
3 The Japanese American Internment: Master Narratives and Class Critique 70
4 Chinese Suicide: Political Desire and Queer Exogamy 111
5 Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Korean American Spies, Shopkeepers, and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots 135
6 Indian Edison: The Ethnoburbian Paradox and Corrective Ethnography 176
Conclusion: The Postracial Aesthetic and Class Visibility 201

About the Author

Yoonmee Chang is an associate professor of English and an affiliate of cultural studies at George Mason University.

Reviews

"Chang's excellent book makes a compelling case for why Asian American critics need to use the 'ghetto' as a paradigm and marshals ample evidence to show the ways Asian American literature supports such a provocative claim."
*author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America*

"Yoonmee Chang's elegantly written, deftly argued, and meticulously developed Writing the Ghetto makes a valuable contribution to our understanding and appreciation of Asian American social history and literature. This is an important book."
*University of California, Berkeley*

"Chang's argument is nuanced, provocatively counterintuitive, and occasionally dizzying. Writing the Ghetto is an important text not only for Asian American scholars, but for American and ethnic studies scholars interested in interrogating the politics, economics, and ethics of belonging."
*Modern Fiction Studies*