CGG Abstracts: Queer Issues in an Asian Pacific American Studies Classroom

De Jesús describes the resistance she has encountered including material on sexuality in her Asian Pacific American Studies class at Arizona State University, which has a largely white, predominantely Mormon student body. In particular, one student and his mother wrote letters to her dean and other administrators complaining about a play that included a lesbian. In the end, she was inspired to keep on teaching what she felt were important texts, despite the controversy.

The article includes a useful lists of texts she uses in her class: “theoretical texts on the construction of Asian American culture and aesthetics by Fred Ho, David Mura, Lisa Lowe, and Augie Tarn; … scenes from David Hwang's M. Butterfly, Jeannie Barroga’s Walls, and Wakako Yamauchi’s And the Soul Shall Dance; … poetry by Marilyn Chin, Albert Saijo, and the Bay Area Filipino American Writers (BAYPAW) and short stories by R. Zamora Linmark, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Chitra Divakaruni, Lisa Park, Peter Bacho, and Nora Okja Keller; … films like Arthur Dong's documentary about the first all-Asian American nightclub, The Forbidden City; Asian Women United's Slaying the Dragon, a documentary exploring the representation of Asian/American women in Hollywood film; Kelly Loves Tony and A. k. a Don Bonus, gritty video diaries by Southeast Asian American youth; Michael Cho's Another America, a documentary about Black/Korean collaboration and conflict; Nathan Adolfson's moving film about Korean adoptees and identity issues, Passing Through; and Helen Lee's experimental film about female body image, Sally's Beauty Spot.”