Q & A

Voices from Queer Asian North America

Edited by Martin F. Manalansan IV, Alice Y. Hom, and Kale Bantigue Fajardo, Preface by David L. Eng
Book Cover

PB: $39.95
EAN: 978-1-4399-2109-8
Publication: Jul 21

HC: $110.50
EAN: 978-1-4399-2108-1
Publication: Jul 21

Ebook: $39.95
EAN: 978-1-4399-2110-4
Publication: Jul 21

458 pages
6 x 9
11 halftones, 1 maps

A vibrant array of scholarly and personal essays, poetry, and visual art that broaden ideas and experiences about contemporary LGBTQ Asian North America

Read an excerpt from the Introduction (pdf).

Description

First published in 1998, Q & A: Queer in Asian America, edited by David L. Eng and Alice Y. Hom, became a canonical work in Asian American studies and queer studies. This new edition of Q & A is neither a sequel nor an update, but an entirely new work borne out of the progressive political and cultural advances of the queer experiences of Asian North American communities.

The artists, activists, community organizers, creative writers, poets, scholars, and visual artists that contribute to this exciting new volume make visible the complicated intertwining of sexuality with race, class, gender, and ethnicity. Sections address activism, radicalism, and social justice; transformations in the meaning of Asian-ness and queerness in various mass media issues of queerness in relation to settler colonialism and diaspora; and issues of bodies, health, disability, gender transitions, death, healing, and resilience.

The visual art, autobiographical writings, poetry, scholarly essays, meditations, and analyses of histories and popular culture in the new Q & A gesture to enduring everyday racial-gender-sexual experiences of mis-recognition, micro-aggressions, loss, and trauma when racialized Asian bodies are questioned, pathologized, marginalized, or violated. This anthology seeks to expand the idea of Asian and American in LGBTQ studies.

Contributors: Marsha Aizumi, Kimberly Alidio, Paul Michael (Mike) Leonardo Atienza, Long T. Bui, John Paul (JP) Catungal, Ching-In Chen, Jih-Fei Cheng, Kim Compoc, Sony Coráñez Bolton, D’Lo, Patti Duncan, Chris A. Eng, May Farrales, Joyce Gabiola, C. Winter Han, Douglas S. Ishii, traci kato-kiriyama, Jennifer Lynn Kelly, Mimi Khúc, Anthony Yooshin Kim, Việt Lê, Danni Lin, Glenn D. Magpantay, Leslie Mah, Casey Mecija, Maiana Minahal, Sung Won Park, Thea Quiray Tagle, Emily Raymundo, Vanita Reddy, Eric Estuar Reyes, Margaret Rhee, Thomas Xavier Sarmiento, Pahole Sookkasikon, Amy Sueyoshi, Karen Tongson, Kim Tran, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Reid Uratani, Eric C. Wat, Sasha Wijeyeratne, Syd Yang, Xine Yao, and the editors

Reviews

" American studies professor Manalansan, activist Hom, and Asian American studies professor Fajardo offer a rich follow-up to the 1998 anthology Q & A . Featuring writers who identify across the LGBTQ spectrum, all 41 pieces are new and cover a diverse set of genres, including memoir, visual art, history, and scholarly criticism…. (T)he expansive set of perspectives is impressive. This rich compendium will delight students of Asian American and queer studies.”
—Publishers Weekly

“ In this remarkable collection, the unsettled, capacious geography of queer Asian North America is quite literally all over the map: it traverses the United States and Canada to South Africa to the Philippines to Sri Lanka to Palestine. In so doing, Q & A undoes area studies and U.S. ethnic studies frames simultaneously, while insisting that queer studies centralize and render apparent the interconnections between transnational settler colonialism, racialized militarism and U.S. empire, and the histories of cross-racial intimacies, community organizing, and activism. Moving from cogent critical analyses of aesthetics, performance, popular culture, racialized desire, and institutionality, to deeply evocative poetry, visual art, and autobiographical essays of love, loss, and survival, these voices from queer Asian North America attest to the brilliance, fierceness, and raucous pleasures of queer diasporic world-making, theorizing, and cultural production. A landmark achievement.”
—Gayatri Gopinath, Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis and Director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University, and author of Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora

“More than a generation has passed since the first edition of Q & A gave voice to our identities as queer and trans Asian people. Once again Q & A calls upon readers to interrogate any personal and societal assumptions about race, gender identity, and sexual orientation when they come together to form a constellation of identity. Timely and relevant, this latest collection explores the new and deepening complexities of our lived experiences and will undoubtedly enrich the fields of academia and activism alike for yet another generation.”
—Andrea Hong Marra, activist and writer

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Preface / David L. Eng

Journeys, Itineraries, Horizons: An Introduction / Martin F. Manalansan IV, Alice Y. Hom, and Kale Bantigue Fajardo

Part I Enduring Spaces and Bodies
1. “Shanghai, Hong Kong, Egg Fu Yung, Fortune Cookie Always Wrong” / Danni Lin
2. All the Pinays are straight, all the queers are Pinoy, but some of us / Kimberly Alidio
3. The Hybridity of Race: Genetics, Geopolitics, and the Queer Genealogy of the “Chinese Jew” / Jih-Fei Cheng
4. Sewing Patches through Performance / D’Lo
5. nine genealogies (of un/belonging) / Patti Duncan
6. Lateral Diasporas and Queer Adaptations in Fresh Off the Boat and The Family Law / Douglas S. Ishii

Part II Queer Unsettlings: Geographies, Sovereignties
7. “Khmer Alphabet,” “Galaxies Like Blood,” “Teeth and Chairs (Phnom Penh),” “Pornography of Days,” “LDR (Amsterdam <- -> San Francisco) (for Wai),” “Samsara,” “‘Eighteen Levels of Hell’ (Đại Nam Amusement Park, Sài Gòn),” “Impossible Poem” / Việt Lê
8. You’re Here, You’re Queer, but You’re Still a Tourist / Kim Compoc
9. Filipinx and Latinx Queer Critique: Houseboys and Housemaids in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands / Sony Coráñez Bolton
10. Queer South Asian Desire, Blackness, and the Apartheid State / Vanita Reddy
11. Pinkwashing, Tourism, and Israeli State Violence / Jennifer Lynn Kelly
12. Asian Settler Abstraction and Administrative Aloha / Reid Uratani

Part III Building Justice: Queer Movements in Asian North America
13. In All Our Splendid Selves: A Roundtable Discussion on Queer API Activism in Three Political Moments / Eric Estuar Reyes and Eric C. Wat
14. Manservants to Millennials: A Brief Queer APA History / Amy Sueyoshi
15. From Potlucks to Protests: Reflections from Organizing Queer and Trans API Communities / Sasha Wijeyeratne
16. Sing Freedom, Sing / Kim Tran
17. Building a Queer Asian Movement: Building Communities and Organizing for Change / Glenn D. Magpantay

Part IV Messing up the Archives and Circuits of Desire
18. inspector of journals makes introductions: Fan & Basket plot escape from Peabody Essex Museum/a birthright / Ching-In Chen
19. On (En)countering the Archival Sidekick / Joyce Gabiola
20. Camp Objects: Orientalist Kitsch and Trashy Re-Collections of the Japanese American Incarceration / Chris A. Eng
21. Asian Men and the Construction of Racial Desire on Craigslist / C. Winter Han
22. “I Think I’ll Be More Slutty”: The Promise of Queer Pilipinx American Desire on Mobile Digital Apps in Los Angeles and Manila / Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza
23. (Re)Generations: A Queer Korean American Diasporic Response / Anthony Yooshin Kim and Margaret Rhee

Part V Burning Down the House—Institutional Queerings
24. Model/Minority Veteran: The Queer Asian American Challenge to Post-9/11 U.S. Military Culture / Long T. Bui
25. Disrupting Normative Choreographies: Queer Asian Canadian Interventions Making a Mess with/in a “Too Asian” University / John Paul Catungal
26. Open in Emergency: On Queer(ing) Asian American Mental Health / Mimi Khúc
27. Religion and Ritual in the Lives of Queer Filipinx in Canada / May Farrales
28. Coming Back Around to a Place of Grace: A Personal Theological Reflection and Journey by a 1.5 Generation Korean American Transman / Sung Won Park
29. “Save the Thai Temple”: Wat Mongkolratanaram, Thai America, and the Heteronormative Logics of South Berkeley / Pahole Sookkasikon

Part VI Mediating Queer
30. In Which I Watch YouTube to Watch Fan Video Edits of You: For Nico Minoru on Marvel’s Runaways; “Anomaly: a poem sponsored by TSA”; “You Are SO Brave: A Found Poem” / Kay Ulanday Barrett
31. PhilippinExcess: Cunanan, Criss, Queerness, Multiraciality, Midwesternness, and the Cultural Politics of Legibility / Thomas Xavier Sarmiento
32. Balang’s Dance: Puro Arte as Queer Affect / Casey Mecija
33. “I Will Always Love You”: Queer Filipino Performances of Blackness, Death, and Return / Thea Quiray Tagle
34. The Opposite of Performance: M. Butterfly in 2017 / Emily Raymundo
35. The Craft: QTBIPOC Tarot in Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim / Xine Yao

Part VII Finding One’s Way: Routes of Lives and Bodies
36. Loving Our Children, Finding Our Way / Marsha Aizumi
37. Needles and Cushions: A Reflection on Memory / Syd Yang
38. Queercore Prepped Me for Cancer / Leslie Mah
39. This One Body: An Excerpt from a Multimedia Poetry Performance in Progress / Maiana Minahal
40. Mamang, or Death in Vegas / Karen Tongson
41. To Fukaya Michiyo / traci kato-kiriyama

About the Contributors
Index

About the Author(s)

Martin F. Manalansan IV is an Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies and the Beverly and Richard Fink Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is the author or editor of several publications, including Cultural Compass: Ethnographic Explorations of Asian America (Temple), which won the Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies in 2002.

Alice Y. Hom is the Director of Equity and Social Justice at Northern California Grantmakers. She is coeditor of Q&A: Queer in Asian America (Temple), which won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Book in Lesbian and Gay Anthologies/Non-Fiction, 1998.

Kale Bantigue Fajardo is an Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies and the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and the author of Filipino Crosscurrents: Oceanographies of Seafaring, Masculinities, and Globalization.


Subjects

Asian American Studies Sexuality Studies/Sexual Identity Gender Studies

In the Series

  • Asian American History and Culture edited by Cathy Schlund-Vials, Rick Bonus, and Shelley Sang-Hee Lee

    Founded by Sucheng Chan in 1991, the Asian American History and Culture series has sponsored innovative scholarship that has redefined, expanded, and advanced the field of Asian American studies while strengthening its links to related areas of scholarly inquiry and engaged critique. Like the field from which it emerged, the series remains rooted in the social sciences and humanities, encompassing multiple regions, formations, communities, and identities. Extending the vision of founding editor Sucheng Chan and emeriti editor Michael Omi, David Palumbo-Liu, K. Scott Wong and Linda Trinh Võ, series editors Cathy Schlund-Vials, Rick Bonus, and Shelley Sang-Hee Lee continue to develop a foundational collection that embodies a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to Asian American studies.