Asian-American Literature and the Family Saga: Cyclical Histories of Racial Melancholia and Racial Dissociation
This paper analyzes the novels The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig and argues how the family saga within Asian American literature draws out elements of the diaspora to best share histories across different ethnic and racial groups. There is a brief overview of the development of Asian-American literature and an explanation of how hyphenated identity is intrinsic to diasporic literatures, and then further discussion of how each of these novels contributes to the legacies of Asian-American writing and storytelling. Then, each novel is analyzed for how the various family saga tropes extract racial melancholia and racial dissociation in the confines of the narrative. The first section, “The Beginning of a Pattern: Conflicted Identity in the Nuclear Family,” analyzes The Namesake through the relationship of the main character, Gogol, and his father, Ashoke, arguing that their disconnection from each other is the origin of the racial melancholy found in the novel. The second section “The Pattern Continued: Complications of Identity Following Complications of Family” examines the novel Pachinko for similar literary trope patterns as those found in The Namesake, and examines the characters Sunja, Noa, Mozasu and Solomon through the course of their lives. This section supports the idea that disconnection between each generation of characters due to strained family relationships is what produces racial melancholy and dissociation. The third section “The Pattern Reappropriated: Same Pattern, New Representation” prefaces that the genre of the family saga makes underrepresented groups more visible, in this case for Burmese populations, and compares the structure of Miss Burma to that of the previous novels, centering how the racial melancholia is produced primarily through the mother-daughter relationship between Louisa and Khin, but also is produced from other relationships within the family. Finally, the conclusion goes on to question the limits of the family saga as a genre within Asian-American literature and whether preferences for other genres will become more apparent in the future.
Asian American Literature, Racial Melancholia, Family Saga, The Namesake, Pachinko, Miss Burma, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority
City University of New York - City College
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