A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

shorthand way of tapping into the deeply rooted and irrational fear of Filipino men
that people already have in our communities. […] When writers use people and
violence in such a graphic way, the writing becomes manipulative. 436
The problem with the controversy, especially in the media and in academia, was the
conflation of several issues: Yamanaka’s supporters invoked the freedom of art, and
accused her critics of censorship. However, as Fujikane notes, the protest had never been
about the “banning, boycotting or burning of books.” 437 Rather, it addressed the liberal
humanist separation of art and life, art and politics. To challenge this bourgeois Western
position has been the prerogative and contribution of ethnic, minority, and postcolonial
literatures, and here we have a specifically ‘Local’ instance of such a challenge.
Over the course of the controversy, the earlier debate about Kingston’s Woman
Warrior has frequently been inferred: After the success of Kingston’s The Woman
Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts, several Chinese American writers and
critics, led by a belligerent Frank Chin, had accused the author of distorting Chinese
history, tradition and culture to serve American expectations and stereotypes. This
generated a heated discussion that dovetailed with the further problem of an audience that
was taking Kingston’s book as a factual autobiography although the narrative structure
would seem to undermine such an interpretation. Note that in Kingston’s case, criticism
arose largely from within her ethnic community about her portrayal of that community. In
general, ethnic literature has borne the double burden of being read as either essential
representation or not authentic enough. In Hawai’i, ethnic hierarchies are complex, and
although local Japanese have their own history of oppression and racism, currently they
are in a position of structural dominance, economically, politically, and socio-culturally.
Thus there is a perceived need to refocus on the realities of inequality, racism, and
difference instead of covering diversity with the umbrella term ‘Asian American.’ The
umbrella’s strategic consolidating value might be outdated: Hawaii’s literature is a case in
point, as Local Asians assert their difference from their mainland ‘relatives.’
When explaining their complaints about Blu’s Hanging, both Fujikane and
Rodrigues echo Edward Said’s credo of the worldliness of texts, and both support their
argumentation by invoking already challenged (colonial) representations. Fujikane
436 Darlene Rodrigues, “Imagining Ourselves: Reflections on the Controversy over Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s
Blu’s Hanging,” in: Amerasia 26 No. 2 (2000): 195-207, here 200-1.
437 Fujikane 2000: 160.
168