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Introduction
- Temple University Press
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Introduction by VeZina Hasu Houston To be marginalized in the United States is (especially for those marginalized because of their ethnicity) to have much of one's experience inadvertently or conveniently omitted from the nation's "history." Written from the heterosexual , patriarchal, Eurocentric perspective, this incomplete history presents itself as unchallengeable, immortal, and righteous; any examination of it meets cries of indignation. Drama has long been a ~eans for the voices marginalized by the dominant society to document their own histories. Yearning to be free from the limitations imposed on the exotic or the marginal , the soul of color wants to be valued as an individual and to function in society in an unburdened fashion. As created and perpetuated by Eurocentrism and its power structures, the essentialized nature of people of color is imagined to be exotic, entwined solely with ethnic roots and an inability to function "appropriately" in society. These manifestations'of colonialism in our society sustain an "ethnicist" view of nation and individual that strangles our ability to heal the ethnic disparities and wounds; and they prevent us from recording our history in a more inclusive way. In her essays "Can the Subaltern Speak?" and "Subaltern Studies; Deconstructing Historiography," South Asian intellectual Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak speaks of the lower strata of the marginalized within the context of colonized India as being "subaltern,"l She notes that, under capitalism, the colonized become politicized. In keeping with the view that internalized colonialism Copyrighted Material xvi INTRODUCTION exists in the United States with ethnicities of color being the colonized within the Eurocentric patriarchy that writes a history that only genuinely and fully represents its own history and that rules sociopolitically in exclusionary ways, I see parallels between U.S. citizens of color and Spivak's subalterns. The politicization of these citizens forms an educated consciousness on the part of people of color, a consciousness that can no longer sit still and wait for The Great White Hope to deliver the progress and agency that the subaltern's latterday twentieth-century consciousness knows are long overdue. However, Spivak notes that the elite believe that the current political expression of people of color will dissipate because it eventually must defer or succumb to the will and concentrated energies of the Eurocentric powers that be; that subaltern progress is discourse and discourse alone, without agency, and therefore limited. I think not. The dramatic voices contained in this volume are too eclectic, intense, powerful, and rich not to leave a permanent mark on the American psyche, and perhaps beyond the boundaries of this continent . That is agency. These voices extend from the mainland United States to Hawaii to the South Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, and the Far East. They include heritages of Japan, China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, Africa, Samoa, Native America, Scotland, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, and Hawaii and the rest of the United States. We are fortunate to have these unique playwrights of Asian descent-and often Asian dissent-residing here in the United States. They lift stereotypes to the wind, broaden the perspectives of ethnic identities of color, and flood people's understanding, in the hope of greater ethnic tolerance. From my peculiar point of view as a multiethnic, multicultural, and binational female, I believe that this agency is the future, with perspectives on truths of history that must and will be combined with European-EuropeanAmerican truth. For change, as we all know, is inevitable. Myths must crumble , societies must shift . .. evolve or die, as the saying goes. For my first anthology, The Politics of Life: Four Plays by Asian American Women, my editors requested that the Introduction be a personal essay on surviving in the American theater as a multiethnic and multicultural female. Many people were uncomfortable with this personal view, wanting my approach to dramatic literature perhaps to align with that of the EuropeanAmerican tradition. My traditions, however, are different (though inclusive of the European-American tradition because that heritage is a part of the American context in which I was reared) . My traditions are born of a culturally hybrid aesthetic and sociopolitical vision. In that vein, I am merely a conduit to bring stories to you that emerge vibrantly from America's diverse ethnoculCopyrighted Material [3.209.81.51] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:15 GMT) INTRODUCTION XVll turallandscape and to reveal to you American persons of Asian descent who are bringing unexpected weather to that landscape that alters how we live and think and how we...