Narratives of Chinese diasporans' inclusion into or exclusion fromthe host country, from foreign aliens to assimilation and citizenship revealtheir efforts to secure cultural integration and enjoy national and politicalrights. But their narratives constantly show that ethnic Chinese, evenadmitted as a citizen, remains outside of the cultural and racial boundariesof the nation. In a historical and social context, they have gone through aprocess of "Yellow Peril" to "Model Minority," a stereotype that persistsin the Anglo world that makes the Chinese narratives culturally,linguistically, or racially at odds with the canonic forms of the nation. Thisalienation from the national culture turns ethnic Chinese culture, to use thewords of Lisa Lowe, into "an alternative formation." "Rather thanexpressing a 'field' integration of Asians into the American cultural sphere,this distance preserves Asian American culture as an altemative site wherethe palismpsest of lost memories is reinvented, histories are fractured andretracted, and the unlike varieties of silence emerged into articulacy."
Being and Beyond: On Cultural Identity of Diasporic Chinese Writers in America and Australia
