At the close of the Second World War, racist immigration laws trapped enclaves of old men in Chinatowns across the United States, preventing their wives or families from joining them. They took refuge from loneliness in the repartee and rivalries exchanged over games of mahjong in the backrooms of barbershops or at the local tong. These bachelors found hope in the nascent marriages and future children who would someday grow roots in American soil, made possible at last by the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. Louis Chu tells the story of a newlywed couple that inherits the burden of this tightly bonded community’s expectations. Returning soldier Ben Loy travels to China to marry Mei Oi, a beautiful, intelligent woman who then emigrates to New York. After their honeymoon, Ben Loy becomes impotent, and his inability to father a child frustrates both Mei Oi and the Chinatown bachelors. This discontent boils over when Mei Oi has an affair and the community learns of Ben Loy’s humiliation. Eat a Bowl of Tea remains a groundbreaking and influential work. The first novel to capture the tone and sensibility of everyday life in an American Chinatown, it is an incisive portrayal of Chinese America on the brink of change. A new foreword by Fae Myenne Ng explores the depth and meaning of Mei Oi’s lust and elucidates the power of Chu’s uncompromising writing.

In the eyes of mid-twentieth-century white America, "Aiiieeeee!" was the one-dimensional cry from Asian Americans, their singular expression of all emotions-it signified and perpetuated the idea of Asian Americans as inscrutable, foreign, self-hating, undesirable, and obedient. In this anthology first published in 1974, Frank Chin, Jeffery Chan, Lawson Inada, and Shawn Wong reclaimed that shout, outlining the history of Asian American literature and boldly drawing the boundaries for what was truly Asian American and what was white puppetry. Showcasing fourteen uncompromising works from authors such as Carlos Bulosan and John Okada, the editors introduced readers to a variety of daring voices. Forty-five years later the radical collection continues to spark controversy. While in the seventies it helped establish Asian American literature as a serious and distinct literary tradition, today the editors' forceful voices reverberate in contemporary discussions about American literary traditions. Now back in print with a new foreword by literary scholar Tara Fickle, this third edition reminds us how Asian Americans fought for-and seized-their place in the American literary canon.

In the eyes of mid-twentieth-century white America, "Aiiieeeee!" was the one-dimensional cry from Asian Americans, their singular expression of all emotions-it signified and perpetuated the idea of Asian Americans as inscrutable, foreign, self-hating, undesirable, and obedient. In this anthology first published in 1974, Frank Chin, Jeffery Chan, Lawson Inada, and Shawn Wong reclaimed that shout, outlining the history of Asian American literature and boldly drawing the boundaries for what was truly Asian American and what was white puppetry. Showcasing fourteen uncompromising works from authors such as Carlos Bulosan and John Okada, the editors introduced readers to a variety of daring voices. Forty-five years later the radical collection continues to spark controversy. While in the seventies it helped establish Asian American literature as a serious and distinct literary tradition, today the editors' forceful voices reverberate in contemporary discussions about American literary traditions. Now back in print with a new foreword by literary scholar Tara Fickle, this third edition reminds us how Asian Americans fought for-and seized-their place in the American literary canon.

In this vibrant and original novel, Christopher Columbus Wong, an orphan son of a Chinatown bachelor community, is trying to invent a family for himself while all around him American popular culture is reinventing itself with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. As the country's mores shift and change, Christopher recalls his own disputed origins, and finds himself on a wild journey with his gay older brother, Peter, a pan-Pacific chef and public television's Peter Pan; the defrocked, deranged, and eroding ex-director of a Chinatown settlement house, Reverend Ted Candlewick, dismissed for paedophilia; the sharp-eyed, conspiring matriarch Auntie Mary, the bridge between the conflicting values that make up this cultural stew; and the dying Uncle Lincoln, a remnant of the transient bachelor society, and, quite possibly, Christopher's and Peter's father. his exwives: Winnie, a Hong Kong immigrant looking for a green card, who leaves him only to become Uncle Lincoln's wife; and Melba, an American orphan of the counterculture, who abandons Christopher when she finds a more authentic Asian from the most recent refugee communities spawned at the end of the Vietnam War. Throughout Christopher's voyage to discover his past, the imaginary China he and his family have envisioned in their American diaspora collides with the reality of China at the end of the millennium. Set against the backdrop of America's wars in Asia and the assimilation of that experience - the refugees, the stereotypes, the food--Eat Everything Before You Die is an ironic commentary on the identities the children of Chinese American immigrants concoct from their questionable histories, cultural practices, and survival strategies. interested in the Asian American experience, and will be of strong, enduring interest to students and scholars in Asian American Studies.