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

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

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.

In the Series

Asian American History and Culture

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, Linda Trinh Võ, and Shelley Lee, series editors Cathy Schlund-Vials and Rick Bonus continue to develop a foundational collection that embodies a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to Asian American studies.

Q & A

Reviews

About the Author(s)

In the Series

Also of Interest

Temple University Press