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Modeling Citizenship

Jewish and Asian American Writing

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Cathy J. Schlund-Vials

Navigating deftly among historical and literary readings, Cathy Schlund-Vials examines the analogous yet divergent experiences of Asian Americans and Jewish Americans in Modeling Citizenship. She investigates how these model minority groups are shaped by the shifting terrain of naturalization law and immigration policy, using the lens of naturalization, not assimilation, to underscore questions of nation-state affiliation and sense of belonging.


Modeling Citizenship examines fiction, memoir, and drama to reflect on how the logic of naturalization has operated at discrete moments in the twentieth century. Each chapter focuses on two exemplary literary works. For example, Schlund-Vials shows how Mary Antin's Jewish-themed play The Promised Land is reworked into a more contemporary Chinese American context in Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land.


In her compelling analysis, Schlund-Vials amplifies the structural, cultural, and historical significance of these works and the themes they address.

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Table of Contents

  • Cover Page
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Preface: Modeling Citizenship and Modeled Selfhood
  • Introduction: Perpetual Foreigners and Model Minorities: Naturalizing Jewish and Asian Americans
  • 1. “Who May Be Citizens of the United States”: Citizenship Models in Edith Maude Eaton and Abraham Cahan
  • 2. Interrupted Allegiances: Indivisibility and Transnational Pledges
  • 3. Utopian and Dystopian Citizenships: Visions and Revisions of the “Promised Land”
  • 4. Reading and Writing America: Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation
  • 5. Demarcating the Nation: Naturalizing Cold War Legacies and War on Terror Policies
  • Epilogue: “A Sense of Loss and Anomie”: Model Minorities and Twenty-First-Century Citizenship
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
  • About the Author

Metadata

  • isbn
    978-1-4399-0319-3
  • publisher
    Temple University Press
  • publisher place
    Philadelphia, PA
  • restrictions
    CC-BY-NC-ND
  • rights
    Copyright 2011

    Available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

  • rights holder
    Temple University-of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
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