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esmenetTitle: The Journey West
Author:springgreen
Fandom: Written for American Gods, but can and should be read by anyone.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 430
Summary: Listen, and I will tell you how Monkey comes to America.
Commentary: This is the story that changed the way I think about fandom. From the author's notes:
I wrote this in anger and pain and hope, with the need to see myself in fiction and the knowledge that most stories of America are not my stories of America. I love that one of the central figures of American Gods is Anansi, but I rolled my eyes at the ever-familiar Norse mythology, of the feeling that immigration had somehow stopped way back when, that the new gods were Technology and whatnot. Because while they are, people are still coming here and bringing their own gods and their own stories.
This story is my "fuck you" to the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the laws barring Asian Americans from citizenship and naturalization, to the Japanese internment camps, to the murder of Vincent Chin. I mock the sentence in the Wikipedia article saying "After World War II, general anti-Asian prejudice largely dissolved."
This story is also my attempt to write myself and people like me into American history; I am American, yes, but I am also not, because I am Chinese, because I will not assimilate, because the red white and blue and the land of the free is what I grew up on, but it's also what kept me out, because I also grew up reading and hearing about Monkey and Li Bai, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Yellow River and Xi'an. It's also not just American; it's an attempt to write people like me into the Western world.
Author:
springgreen Fandom: Written for American Gods, but can and should be read by anyone.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 430
Summary: Listen, and I will tell you how Monkey comes to America.
Commentary: This is the story that changed the way I think about fandom. From the author's notes:
I wrote this in anger and pain and hope, with the need to see myself in fiction and the knowledge that most stories of America are not my stories of America. I love that one of the central figures of American Gods is Anansi, but I rolled my eyes at the ever-familiar Norse mythology, of the feeling that immigration had somehow stopped way back when, that the new gods were Technology and whatnot. Because while they are, people are still coming here and bringing their own gods and their own stories.
This story is my "fuck you" to the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the laws barring Asian Americans from citizenship and naturalization, to the Japanese internment camps, to the murder of Vincent Chin. I mock the sentence in the Wikipedia article saying "After World War II, general anti-Asian prejudice largely dissolved."
This story is also my attempt to write myself and people like me into American history; I am American, yes, but I am also not, because I am Chinese, because I will not assimilate, because the red white and blue and the land of the free is what I grew up on, but it's also what kept me out, because I also grew up reading and hearing about Monkey and Li Bai, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Yellow River and Xi'an. It's also not just American; it's an attempt to write people like me into the Western world.
