'DISLOCATION AN'D RELOCATION OF THE ASIAN -AMERICAN CHARACTER IN THE WORKS OF PHILIP KAN GOTANDA AND DAVID HENRY HWANG

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Asians from various parts of the continent, namely, China, Japan, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, The Philippines and Vietnam arrived in the United States aspiring to escape the hardships encountered at home as well as achieve the glittering promises of the Gold Mountain dream. However, due to the Americans' policy of discriminating ethnic people, they not only failed to realize their goals but were dislocated, too. That's to say, poverty, marginalization of existence, humiliation and even enslavement were their lot. Thus, it is not surprising to find that the displaced Asian-Americans experienced the same humiliation in American drama. For a long time, they were denied access to the American theatrical main stages. In other words, there were no plays by or about them on Broadway or in any theatrical alternative. Obviously, cultural differences, Asians' negative perception of the theater and mostly racial prejudice played great part in their absence from the American cultural arena. Nevertheless, from the mid-sixties and early seventies of the twentieth century Asian-American dramatists have become an important part in the American literary scene. Apparently, the new receptivity to Asian­ American voices was brought into beings by variety of changes, namely, a change of political relationships between the United States and some Asian countries as well as in its immigrations policy. Also, the Black Civil movement Rights in the late fifties and early sixties and the establishment of The East I West