Professor Wong is the author of two novels, Homebase and American Knees. He is also the co-editor and editor of six Asian American and American literary anthologies including the pioneering anthology Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers. In 2019, he started his own book series at the University of Washington Press, reissuing notable Asian American books such as Eat a Bowl of Tea by Louis Chu, Awake in the River and Shedding Silence by Janice Mirikitani, and a new work, Uncle Rico's Encore: Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle by Peter Bacho. Wong is Professor of English and Byron and Alice Lockwood Professor in the Humanities at the University of Washington.
The UW Libraries has many items related to the lecture in our collection. A few are listed below. Use the UW Libraries Search database to find these and more. Ask Us! if you need help with your research.
The UW Libraries offers many Research Guides to help you to get started with research. These research guides will include library resources relevant to research related to Anna Tsing's lecture. You are encouraged to contact the librarians for these subjects for help with your research.
UW Professor of English Shawn Wong has been working on his DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) statement for 50 years (38 years at the UW) and is almost finished. He began writing it when, as an undergraduate, he was told that Asian American literature did not exist, that his writing had too much style to be written by him, that his first students could not yet get English credit for taking his Asian American literature classes, and that large corporations could question his birthright and his ownership of intellectual property. His first book, Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers, turns 50 in 2024 and it's where this DEI travel story begins.
Shawn Wong will be joined in conversation by Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs Ed Taylor.
The lecture, to be held on December 7, 2022 at 7:00 pm in Kane Hall 210 is free and open to all. Register to Attend
This lecture will be recorded and added to the Katz Lecture playlist.
This research guide includes resources published by Professor Wong and related research. All resources are available through the UW Libraries. Everyone is welcome to visit a UW Library in person to access these resources. UW students, faculty, and staff may access online resources from off campus using their UW Net ID.
The following readings have been recommended by The Simpson Center for those who would like to learn more about the subject of the lecture.
No-No Boy by
"No-No Boy has the honor of being among the first of what has become an entire literary canon of Asian American literature,? writes novelist Ruth Ozeki in her new foreword. First published in 1957, No-No Boy was virtually ignored by a public eager to put World War II and the Japanese internment behind them. It was not until the mid-1970s that a new generation of Japanese American writers and scholars recognized the novel's importance and popularized it as one of literature's most powerful testaments to the Asian American experience. No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life ?no-no boys.' Yamada answered ?no? twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. Unwilling to pledge himself to the country that interned him and his family, Ichiro earns two years in prison and the hostility of his family and community when he returns home to Seattle. As Ozeki writes, Ichiro's ?obsessive, tormented? voice subverts Japanese postwar ?model-minority? stereotypes, showing a fractured community and one man's ?threnody of guilt, rage, and blame as he tries to negotiate his reentry into a shattered world.' The first edition of No-No Boy since 1979 presents this important work to new generations of readers.
Aiiieeeee! by 
Homebase by
Rainsford Chan, named after the California town where his great grandfather settled during the gold rush, was fourth-generation Chinese American. When people asked him where he came from, he said, "Berkeley." Then they'd say no, where did he come from "originally." He'd reply again, "Berkeley."But as the rich, shimmering prose of Homebase reveals, Rainsford Chan's origins are far more complex than that simple answer. As he explores his own personal history-marked by the death of his young father and eight years later his mother-he gives a poignant account of a family whose American experience begins with Great Grandfather, the determined, strong railway worker who loses faith in his adopted country, and perhaps in himself. Moving in and out of dreams, letters, and a searing reality, Rainsford discovers his need to make America his homebase. After 125 years of his family's sojourn in the land, Rainsford begins a journey to understand the legacy of love and hurt handed down by his forebears and to claim this country, at last, for his own. Shawn Wong's unique and beautifully written novel of alienation, longing, and desire gives us a fascinating insight into the Asian American experience.
American Knees by
Read about the movie, Americanese, based on Shawn Wong's book, at: http://www.americanesethemovie.com
Asian Diasporas by
Asian diasporas are all too often seen in terms of settlement problems in a host nation, where the focus is on issues of crime, housing, employment, racism and related concerns. The essays in this volume view Asian diasporic movements in the context of globalization and global citizenship, in which multiple cultural allegiances, influences and claims together create complex negotiations of identity. Examining a range of cultural documents through which such negotiations are conducted -- literature and other forms of writing, media, popular culture, urban spaces, military inscriptions, and so on -- the essays in this volume explore the meanings and experiences involved in the two major Asian diasporic movements, those of South and East Asia.
Eat a Bowl of Tea
Eat a Bowl of Tea by
At the close of the Second World War, racist immigration laws trapped enclaves of old men in Chinatowns across the United States, preventing their wives or families from joining them. They took refuge from loneliness in the repartee and rivalries exchanged over games of mahjong in the backrooms of barbershops or at the local tong. These bachelors found hope in the nascent marriages and future children who would someday grow roots in American soil, made possible at last by the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. Louis Chu tells the story of a newlywed couple that inherits the burden of this tightly bonded community?s expectations. Returning soldier Ben Loy travels to China to marry Mei Oi, a beautiful, intelligent woman who then emigrates to New York. After their honeymoon, Ben Loy becomes impotent, and his inability to father a child frustrates both Mei Oi and the Chinatown bachelors. This discontent boils over when Mei Oi has an affair and the community learns of Ben Loy?s humiliation. Eat a Bowl of Tea remains a groundbreaking and influential work. The first novel to capture the tone and sensibility of everyday life in an American Chinatown, it is an incisive portrayal of Chinese America on the brink of change. A new foreword by Fae Myenne Ng explores the depth and meaning of Mei Oi?s lust and elucidates the power of Chu?s uncompromising writing.
Awake in the River and Shedding Silence by
Fierce, raw, and unapologetic, Janice Mirikitani's poetry and prose are as vibrant and resonant today as when these two collections were first published in 1978 and 1987. Now back in print in one volume, Awake in the River and Shedding Silence epitomizes Mirikitani's singular voice--one that is brash, sexual, politically outspoken, and unconcerned with pandering to mainstream audiences. An influential artist and activist, Mirikitani has advanced the causes of women of color feminisms, global anti-imperialism, and Afro-Asian solidarity for more than fifty years. Her writings confront sexualized violence, anti-Asian racism, the intergenerational trauma of incarceration, the dangers of passivity, and internalized oppression, while also illuminating the power of awakening from silence and fighting for justice. Connecting Japanese American discrimination with broader struggles from the local to the global, Awake in the River and Shedding Silence showcases how the renowned poet found power in speaking out.
Uncle Rico's encore : mostly true stories of Filipino Seattle by 
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