| The notion of silence has long been a trope in liberation movements in the United States, including women's liberation, gay and lesbian liberation, and civil rights movements of people of color. Both "breaking silence" and "coming to voice" have bow powerful refrains in thew movements. However, the idea that "five speech" is a right enjoyed by all members of American society is open to question. Trinh T. Minh-ha suggests that silence operates as a form of discourse, and as a will to "unsay." She argues that silence may, at times, signify a refusal to partake in the dominant narratives. Thus, rather than representing simply the absence or opposite of speech, silence functions along with what is spoken. As such, it may also signify resistance to the official histories of the U.S. In this dissertation, I explore meanings of silence and speech in writings by Asian American women. While silence has long been used as a negative stereotype about Asian American women, I argue that writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Mitsuye Yamada, Joy Kogawa, Theresa Flak Kyung Cha, Nora Okja Keller, and Anchee Min deploy silence as a means of resistance. Juxtaposing their "unofficial narratives"---China Men, The Woman Warrior, Camp Notes, Obason, Dictee and Comfort Woman---against the histories that exclude them, they argue for recognition of their cultural participation and offer analyses of the intersections among gender, race, nation, and sexuality. |
