Library Catalog

Begin Here : Reading Asian North American Autobiographies of Childhood /

Davis, Rocio G.

Begin Here : Reading Asian North American Autobiographies of Childhood / Rocio G. Davis. - 1 online resource (256 p.)

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. To Begin Here -- Chapter 2. The Asian Childhood -- Chapter 3. Cultural Revolutions and Takeovers -- Chapter 4. The Liminal Childhood -- Chapter 5. Citizens or Denizens -- Chapter 6. In North America -- Chapter 7. The Childhood for Children -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- About the Author

restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

An analytically innovative work, Begin Here widens the current critical focus of Asian North American literary studies by proposing an integrated thematic and narratological approach to the practice of autobiography. It demonstrates how Asian North American memoirs of childhood challenge the construction and performative potential of national experiences. This understanding influences theoretical approaches to ethnic life writing, expanding the boundaries of traditional autobiography by negotiating narrative techniques and genre and raising complex questions about self-representation and the construction of cultural memory. By examining the artistic project of some fifty Asian North American writers who deploy their childhood narratives in the representation of the individual processes of self-identification and negotiation of cultural and national affiliation, this work provides a comprehensive overview of Asian North American autobiographies of childhood published over the last century. Importantly, it also attends to new ways of writing autobiographies, employing comics, blending verse, prose, diaries, and life writing for children, and using relational approaches to self-identification, among others.




Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.


In English.

9780824830922 9780824861599

10.1515/9780824861599 doi


Asian American children--Biography--History and criticism.
Asian Americans--Biography--History and criticism.
Asians--Biography--History and criticism.--Canada
Children--Biography--History and criticism.--United States
HISTORY / Asia / General.

305.23092/39507