This course will examine the historical currents that necessitated the emergence of Asian Pacific American literary sensibility, in conjunction with a consideration of the difficulties and possibilities inherent to in this categorization. Asian American populations have been deeply impacted by restrictive immigration legislation and American foreign policy, putting its peoples in a unique position for defining Americanness. How do artists with an Asian ancestry challenge a country that ostensibly celebrates diversity yet looks with suspicion on the foreign? We will be reading the short stories of Jhumpa Lahiri, the play M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, and novels by John Okada, Brian Roley, and Bich Nguyen