Recently, a new perspective has emerged. While it was touched upon by Gary Okihiro in his celebrated essay 'When and Where I Enter', the necessary integration of gender and class into Asian American racial identity is more deeply examined in Espiritu's book 'Asian American Women and Men'. Class and particularly gender, Espiritu argues, cannot be divorced from a study of Asians in America, and therefore Espiritu strives to examine Asian Americans from a seamless integration of each of these perspectives.
"Asian American activist Glenn Omatsu," Espiritu writes, "reminded us that 'whatever conceptual framework we choose, ... we need to constantly remind ourselves that each framework is selective. It serves to bring certain issues to the foreground while pushing others into the background'... Attentive to the intersections of race, class and gender and to the experience of both men and women, this book explores how racial patriarchy and class exploitation in the United States have (re)shaped gender relations within the Asian American community. It does so by examining the material and cultural lives of both Asian American women and men over time... In this book, ... I will argue that it is this historical oppression of Asian American men and women, along both material and cultural lines, that (re)structures the rules of gender in the Asian American community."
The book is structured in chapters, although each chapter seems to be more like a short essay focusing on aspects of gender in the context of Asian America. The book is written in sometimes overly-simplistic or self-aware prose, which may be disconcerting at times but certainly makes for quick and easy read. Most rewarding, I felt, was Espiritu's chapter on the role of Hollywood and the media in constructing the identities of Asian American men and women.
If ever you questioned the place of gender in your identity as a non-white American, I highly recommend this book.
Espiritu, Yen Le. Asian American Women and Men. Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks. 1997.