The Refugee Aesthetic In the series Asian American History and Culture, edited by Cathy Schlund- Vials, Shelley Sang- Hee Lee, and Rick Bonus. Founding editor, Sucheng Chan; editors emeriti, David Palumbo- Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ. Also in this series: Heidi Kim, Illegal Immigrants/Model Minorities: The Cold War of Chinese American Narrative (forthcoming) Chia Youyee Vang with Pao Yang, Retired Captain, U.S. Secret War in Laos, Prisoner of Wars: A Hmong Fighter Pilot's Story of Escaping Death and Confronting Life (forthcoming) Kavita Daiya, Graphic Migrations: Precarity and Gender in India and the Diaspora (forthcoming) L. Joyce Zapanta Mariano, Giving Back: Filipino Diaspora and the Politics of Giving (forthcoming) Manan Desai, The United States of India: Anticolonial Literature and Transnational Refraction Cathy J. Schlund- Vials, Guy Beauregard, and Hsiu- chuan Lee, eds., The Subject(s) of Human Rights: Crises, Violations, and Asian/American Critique Malini Johar Schueller, Campaigns of Knowledge: U.S. Pedagogies of Colonialism and Occupation in the Philippines and Japan Crystal Mun- hye Baik, Reencounters: On the Korean War and Diasporic Memory Critique Michael Omi, Dana Y. Nakano, and Jeffrey T. Yamashita, eds., Japanese American Millennials: Rethinking Generation, Community, and Diversity Masumi Izumi, The Rise and Fall of America’s Concentration Camp Law: Civil Liberties Debates from the Internment to McCarthyism and the Radical 1960s Shirley Jennifer Lim, Anna May Wong: Performing the Modern Edward Tang, From Confinement to Containment: Japanese/American Arts during the Early Cold War Patricia P. Chu, Where I Have Never Been: Migration, Melancholia, and Memory in Asian American Narratives of Return Cynthia Wu, Sticky Rice: A Politics of Intraracial Desire Marguerite Nguyen, America’s Vietnam: The Longue Durée of U.S. Literature and Empire Vanita Reddy, Fashioning Diaspora: Beauty, Femininity, and South Asian American Culture A list of additional titles in this series appears at the back of this book. Timothy K. August The Refugee Aesthetic REIMAGINING SOUTHEAST ASIAN AMERICA TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia • Rome • Tokyo TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 tupress .temple .edu Copyright © 2021 by Temple University—Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education All rights reserved Published 2021 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: August, Timothy K., 1979– author. Title: The refugee aesthetic : reimagining Southeast Asian America / Timothy K. August. Other titles: Asian American history and culture. Description: Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2021. | Series: Asian American history and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Effectively synthesizes current theoretical discussions of refugee cultural interventions and Asian American aesthetics and uses a literary and artistic focus to ask how refugees and refuge have been represented and imagined over the last century. Intervenes with a “refugee aesthetic” analytic that rethinks and re-empowers refugee positions, perspectives, and experiences”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020010577 (print) | LCCN 2020010578 (ebook) | ISBN 9781439915301 (cloth) | ISBN 9781439915318 (paperback) | ISBN 9781439915325 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Southeast Asian Americans—Ethnic identity. | Refugees in literature. | Refugees in art. Classification: LCC E184.S695 A94 2021 (print) | LCC E184.S695 (ebook) | DDC 305.895/073—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020010577 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020010578 c The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48- 1992 Printed in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For my parents Contents Acknowledgments ix Refugee Aesthetics: An Introduction 1 1 The Refugee Image 25 2 The Refugee Position 55 3 Refugee Space 78 4 The Refugee Personality 98 Refugee Futures: A Conclusion 124 Notes 133 Bibliography 149 Index 159 Acknowledgments Io we an enormous debt to the various refugee artists and authors who appear throughout this book for their inspiration, courage, and willingness to allow me to use their material. And indeed, I want to acknowledge up front that this book is built off the backs of many artists, authors, and academics of color, and to be able to access the creative artwork, forms of mentorship, and resources necessary to write this book is a privilege that I do not take lightly. I am also indebted to my editors, Sara Jo Cohen, Sarah Mun- roe, and Aaron Javsicas, and the entire staff at Temple University Press. Their help at various stages of the publication process has made this collaboration enjoyable and rewarding. I would also like to thank the two reviewers of the book whose astute sugges- tions elevated and enhanced this project. Select portions of this book have appeared in different forms. Chapter 4 is a revision of “Spies Like Us: A Professor Undercover in the Literary Market- place,” LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 29.1 (2018): 60–79, DOI: 10.1080/10436928.2018.1416252, which can be found in a special issue edited by Cathy Schlund- Vials. Chapter 2 builds from “Re- placing the Accent: From the Exile to Refugee Posi- tion,” MELUS: Multi- Ethnic Literature of the United States 41.3