‘I was just
flabbergasted’

By Nadine Kam
Assistant Features Editor
Star-Bulletin

THE furor over Lois-Ann Yamanaka's portrayals of Filipinos has been quietly raging between scholars and writers since 1994. That's when she won the Association of Asian American Studies national fiction award for "Saturday Night at Pahala Theatre."

The award drew attention to that work, which contained a reference to Filipino men as sexual predators.

Throughout, Yamanaka has maintained her silence, saying only that her critics should have the same opportunity for free expression that she claims for her work.

After learning that the Association of Asian American Studies had revoked award it had given her fiction, she retreated to her hometown of Hilo before deciding to share her thoughts.

"I was just flabbergasted," she said about the charge of racism. "As an Asian American writer I'm told, 'I'm not this, I'm not that. I need to be more political. I need to do this. My literature is juvenile.'

"I really contemplated it, and all I can figure is this. We are all on a wheel. We're all spokes. If we write in the context of who we are -- Filipino American, Japanese American -- whatever we are, these spokes are all important to the wheel and if all the spokes are there we can go forward.

"But people are saying, 'You're not doing it good enough. We'll pluck you off the wheel.' Well, I'm sorry.

"I think people are hurt and it might have been provoked by something I said in my book. But people need to talk about the reasons and the other social phenomena that may be making people feel what they feel.

"Getting bashed is a bad thing, but you stand back from it and say there's a reason people feel hurt, people feel disenfranchised."

She said she objects to the notion that because she has such a prominent voice in Hawaii literature that she should be a spokesperson for all. More productive than chastizing writers for their portrayals of those outside their ethnic groups, she said, the complainers should be convincing others to write their own stories, as she encouraged her students during her years teaching at Kalakaua Intermediate.

"I used to scold (my students) because they would tell me that they were Americans. I told them, 'Yes, you are, but first and foremost you are second-generation Filipino Americans. You know what it's like to struggle. You don't get your strength from saying you're American.'

"That's the trouble. We all wanted to assimilate into white culture."

Yamanaka instructed her students to read the works of Carlos Bolosan, Jeff Tagami, Jessica Hagedorn and Michelle Cruz Skinner, then find their own voices. It was three of her former students -- graduate students today -- who accepted the AAAS award in her honor June 27, before it was revoked.

Yamanaka said she will continue to encourage her students to write their own stories when she takes a Distinguished Visiting Writer position at the University of Hawaii-Manoa in the fall.

"You cannot be afraid of falling down the cliff, even if you fall down face first," she said. "I think others have said that I write the truth, but it's not the truth, it's a truth."