Description
Book SynopsisAnger and bitterness tend to pervade narratives written by second generation Asian American daughters, despite their largely unremarkable upbringings. The author explores this paradox, locating in the origins of these women's maddeningly immaterial suffering not only racial hegemonies but also the structure of the immigrant family itself.
Trade ReviewDeftly cognizant of the relationship between the filial and the financial, Ingratitudeseamlessly moves between well-known works and less-discussed memoirs. This archive, explored over the course of four chapters, enables Ninh to 'reconstruct the processes by which diligent, docile immigrants' daughters are produced.' -- Cathy J. Schlund-Vials * College Literature *
Ninh makes a valuable contribution to Asian American Studies as well as gender/women's studies when she brings critical insight to gender-specific readings of the Asian American daughter, exploring the nuances of how familial structures of feelings and structures of power construct and produce the disciplined, docile, and chaste daughter. -- Catherine H. Nguyen * Amerasia Journal *
erin Khuê Ninh is insistent and persuasive in drawing our attention to the ways that race, economy, and power saturate the Asian American family and, within it, the place of daughters. Ingratitude is also an assertive, stylish, and elegant work of criticism, offering new insights into well-read texts while making the case for reading more closely lesser-known stories. -- Viet Nguyen,author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America
In considering Jade Snow Wong's
Fifth Chinese Daughter (1950), Maxine Hong Kingston's
The Woman Warrior (1976), Evelyn Lau's
Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid (1989), Catherine Lau's
Oriental Girls Desire Romance (1997), and other works, the author looks at intergenerational conflict as a ste of power, an inequality which Asian American subjectivity and identity has been constituted. -- J.R. Wendlanad * Choice *
Ninh's study takes the figure of the second-generation Asian American daughter, familiar to most readers through the popular trope of the mother-daughter relationship, to brilliantly show how this figure necessitates a reading of the nuclear family as a special form of capitalist enterprise. * American Literature *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 The Filial Debtor: Jade Snow Wong 2 Refractions of Harm: Maxine Hong Kingston 3 The Caring of Jailers: Evelyn Lau, Catherine Liu 4 Desirable Daughters: Fae Myenne Ng, Elaine Mar, Chitra Divakaruni Afterword: The Ending Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index About the Author
