In many Asian American novels, writers set trauma in a distant mother country or within an insular Asian family to ensure that their pain is not a re… - Cathy Park Hong

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In many Asian American novels, writers set trauma in a distant mother country or within an insular Asian family to ensure that their pain is not a reproof against American imperial geopolitics or domestic racism; the outlying forces that cause their pain—Asian Patriarchal Fathers, White People Back Then—are remote enough to allow everyone, including the reader, off the hook.