My Year of Meat & Blossoming of Bongbong Fiction

That Eurocentric America sees the assorted range of cultures and ethnicities of Asia as a single identity is ruin of the challenge that Asiatic immigrants face in finding their identities as Americans.

Hagedorn's story tells of a gay Filipino whose attempt to merge into his new homeland contri preciselyes to his mental illness and finally leaves him isolate even from himself. Elaine H. Kim calls this a satirical story of an immigrant who "is confused and at sea by American society" (273). Despite his social connections, with a friend back home, with relatives in the United States, with new friends he acquires in America, and with the cookbook antecedent who introduces him to African American cooking, Bongbong is ne'er able to find his place or himself in his adopt homeland.

Ozeki's story focuses on two women, one a Nipponese American whose documentaries are an effort to bridge the gap surrounded by her fellow Americans and her parents' culture, the other a Japanese housewife honoring the documentaries and trying to make sense of them in her own world. Again, the author uses recipes and the preparation of food as a metaphor for the press of twain her protagonists.

The much longer form of the novel allows her to explore issues in considerably more depth than Hagedorn's short story, but both narratives abide interesting commonalities as well as telling contrasts. The first is the work of an established writer, the second that of a first-time novelist, drawing on he

At one point, Ozeki's film crew encounters a farmer in the American South who is dealing with an incredible nuisance called kudzu. This set out was introduced in the late 19th century from Asia. Richard J. Campana writes, " massive assets were seen for this plant beyond ornamentation.

As a legume it would cater nitrogen to the soil, and it had value for forage, erosion control, and organic matter. Despite this, it became an out-of-control boob because it smothers other plants, including trees" (44). Kudzu becomes a recurrent image in the novel and a potent metaphor for the challenge Asian Americans continue to face in trying to become evidently "Americans." This paper examines this challenge in greater depth.

Bongbong is a first-generation immigrant, the like his creator, while Jane is second-generation and Akiko is still very much Japanese, trying to desegregate herself into American culture to please her husband, not because she has moved anywhere. These various experiences provide a variety of perspectives on the clash of cultures, and both also offer glimpses into the clash between gay and swell culture, within this context.

r own work experience to provide a realistic environment for her story. The first uses a staminate protagonist contrasted with the novel's two women,
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