Making More Waves: New Writing by Asian American Women

Hailing by lineage or immigration from Asian posts such as Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Korea, Vietnam, and India, the contributors to Making More Waves are as well known as Lisa See (On Gold Mountain) and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (The Mistress of Spices ), and as new to print as 16-year-old poet Juno Parrenas. The story "Summer of My Korean Soldier" and the essay "Hambun-Hambun" neatly mirror one another, and illustrate an experience shared by all of these writers: the sense of being an outsider. In polished or jagged prose, the authors recount their lives and dig into feminist issues such as violence against women in war and peacetime, sexuality, and the nexus of race, class, and gender. They deftly explore how being Asian in America shapes such concerns and casts up others.