WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be “serious”? This is a question I often think about because I happen to be an academic who studies Asian-American literature and culture. For a long time, I had to defend the seriousness of what I studied. Even now, when I tell other academics in a different discipline (say political science or education) that this is my area of specialty, they give me a funny look. Some will respond, “Do you mean you study US-Asian relations?” Or, “Asia is big.” Or, “Oh, Amy Tan.”

Fortunately, such responses are becoming rarer. There are enough prominent American writers of Asian descent that the idea of an “Asian-American literature” doesn’t seem strange. Just as important, there is an impressive body of scholarship devoted to this subject that makes it more difficult to be dismissive.Read more