Model Minority Discourse and Asian American Jouis-Sense

Abstract

Asian American literature begins, for the moment, with two Anglo-Chinese Canadian sisters. Over the last decade, Asian Americanist scholars Amy Ling and Annette White-Parks have established Edith Maude Eaton (1865–1914) and (Lillie) Winnifred Eaton (1875–1954) as the first Asian North American writers of fiction (Ling, Between 21; Ling, “Creating” 306; Ling and White-Parks 1). The two founders, however, have not been equally appreciated. Asian American criticism tends to see Edith Eaton, who adopted the Chinese pseudonym Sui Sin Far and who wrote sympathetically about Chinese immigrants, as a conscientious social critic. Winnifred Eaton, on the other hand, who wrote under the fabricated Japanese pseudonym Onoto Watanna and enjoyed a successful career writing popular orientalia, is regarded as a sellout and a race traitor.1 Shawn Wong, himself a pioneer of Asian American literature, summarizes this still prevalent view in his introduction to Sui Sin Far/Edith Eaton’s short story “The Americanizing of Pau Tsu”: