Transracial/Transgender
Analogies of Difference inMai's America
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2221149 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leslie Bow (University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 75-103 |
| Publication date | 2009-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/599335 |
| OpenAlex | W2175404602 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
My article poses the question, “What does it mean to represent as ‘trans’ or between categories of state‐enforced identity?” in order to draw an analogy between the “transracial” and the “transgendered.” In thinking about how transgenderism contributes to a deeper understanding of the legacy of racial segregation, the article begins by twinning icons of segregation: “colored”/“white” drinking fountains and the gender‐segregated restroom doors. It seeks to explore the ways in which the gender dissonance attributed to transgendered figures might contribute to developing a lens for reading the histories of “other” racial groups under segregation, in particular, Asian Americans. The second half of the article reads the 2002 documentary film Mai’s America, which portrays American culture from the point of view of an exchange student from Hanoi. Even as Mai fails to find a sense of community within the racial communities split by the legacy of segregation, she develops a sympathetic attachment to someone who likewise inhabits “no place” in rural Mississippi: a white male drag queen. As the film situates both its protagonists as occasions for interpretation and targets of forced conformity, it suggests an alternate lens for conceiving coalition based on shared intimacies and positionalities rather than shared identity. My interest in twinning the terms “transgender” and “transracial” lies in understanding both interstitial subjects with rights and the abstract nature of interstitiality, the political valance of “representing” between the dominant symbolics
Aesthetics · Art · Identity (music) · Lesbian · Political science · Politics · Queer · Sociology · Transgender · White (mutation) · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
The Mississippi Chinese
Vested Interests
The daughter's seduction
Deconstruction
The Forest of Symbols
"Racial Interstitiality and the Anxieties of the "Partly Colored
Ladies," "Gentlemen," and "Colored
The daughter's seduction
The Empire Strikes Back
The alchemy of race and rights
Racechanges
A Theory of Middleman Minorities
Deconstruction
Performing Asian America
Negotiating Difference
Get Thee to a Big City
The Transgender Issue
Mackdaddy, Superfly, Rapper
Bodies That Matter
Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors
The Ritual Process
Bathroom Doors and Drinking Fountains
Intimacy
Economic Reasons for the Coming of the Mexican Immigrant
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |