WRITERS ' CHOICE
University Press.) " Our anthology
is exclusively Asian-American. That
means Filipino , Chinese, andJapa–
nese-Americans . American born
and raised, who got their China and
Japan from radio , off silver screen ,
from television, out of comic books,
from pushers of white American
culture that pictured the yellow
man as something when wounded ,
sad, or angry , or swearing, or won–
dering whined , shouted, or
screamed 'aiiieeeee'!" write Frank
Chin , Jeffery Paul Chan , Lawson
Fusao Inada , and Shawn Hsu
Wong , in the stirring preface , a
manifesto ' for an Asian-American
renaIssance.
Afro-American writers will
find that Asian-American writers
have received similar treatment
from those purveyors of uni-cultur–
al values: their use of English is
subjected to picayune nitpicking ;
their characters are acceptable if
they're "prostitute , smuggler,
coolie, . . . lack manhood or are
actively offensive" ;
if they "work
with the imperatives and universals
of minority experience and (apply)
them to their work , " they are
"treated as . . . a quack witch
doctor, a bughouse prophet, an
entertaining fe llow, dancing the
heebie-jeebies in the street for
dimes ."
Afro-American writers who've
said the same thing have been clas–
sified as "hysterical" or "para–
noid. " Now with yellow , red, and
brown writers in agreement maybe
319
soon we ' ll find out who 's nuts.
Who Is Angelina?
By Al
Young. (Holt , Rinehart and Wins–
ton .) Al Young puts the forms of
the traditional novel to good use.
He has a painter's eye , a musician's
ear (did nightclub singing , Berke–
ley late 50s and was a disc jockey) is
eloquent and does excellent paro–
dies of a variety of Afro -American
characters .
Angelina's treatment of the
mugger at the novel's end will draw
acc usations of " right wing" or
" conservative" but applying white
political standards to those of blacks
is risky business . Recent polls from
Black Woridmagazine,Jet ,
and the
Gallup suggest that the majority of
Afro-Americans would approve of
Angelina's assault of the criminal,
but , of course , " radicals" aren't
interested in what the masses of
Afro-Americans believe. They ' re
only listening to these' 'vanguards "
they keep laying on
us.
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