Abstract
This chapter looks at the way in which Asian-American children’s literature may be viewed through the lens of Homi Bhabha’s “Third space” and its accompanying notion of hybridity, paying particular attention to how encounters between the categories of “Asian” and “American” become generative through the suspension of prior assumptions, values and codes of meaning. Among other authors considered the chapter focuses particularly on Laurence Yep.
There are certain Third spaces that are more productive and meaningful than others. One of these is the classroom and all the virtual versions that grow from it. Here, asymmetries of power dissolve and ideas hybridise, then to be disseminated. I am very grateful to students past and present: Lim Zhan Yi, Justin Goh, Rebecca Seah and Joycelyn Lee who have in various ways helped to shape this piece.
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Ang, S. (2020). Hyphens, Hybrids and Bridges: Negotiating Third Spaces in Asian-American Children’s Literature. In: Wilson, B., Gabriel, S. (eds) Asian Children’s Literature and Film in a Global Age. Asia-Pacific and Literature in English. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2631-2_16
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