"Unbroken Thread"

[Lykren]

So I'm taking an Asian-American studies class, and one of the texts for the class is an anthology of plays by Asian-American women entitled "Unbroken Thread." If the plays were well-written I could see the value of studying them - but they aren't. Those I've read so far have been terrible, in fact. So my frustration is, why make us read fiction written about the experiences of Asian immigrants and Asian-Americans - which I have no problem with, it could be a more entertaining way of discussing the issues than your typical history text - if the plays merely repeat conventional wisdoms through the mouths of characters with no depth? Surely there are works which take as their subject the Asian-American experience but are also well-written. Could someone suggest an example?

It's irritating to me that the professor thinks there is something to be learned by studying clearly subpar literature. It's as though my professor expected that the fact that the plays were written by Asian-Americans would mean that they would be 'authentic,' instead of being what they are, which is a symbol of the resistance to admitting to the complexity of human experience, and a reduction of lived truth to simplistic ideology. It's not fair to the populations we are studying to represent them in this light.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Has anyone read the text I'm speaking of and disagrees with me completely? Perhaps I'm missing something and being an idiot! Anyways, just wanted to vent, as well as to hear your thoughts on this issue. Thanks.

[YesNo]

I enjoyed what I read of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club as well as the movie. Its a novel rather than a play.

[Lykren]

Yes, I thought of Amy Tan. I think I read a novel of hers in junior high a long time ago, but I think I thought it was not very good even back then. Maybe I'm confusing it with something else though, and/or maybe The Joy Luck Club is better.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

Well, I don't read this thread you mentioned, the plays entitled as "Unbroken Thread" as it is an Asian - American origin.
My intuition from the first day I came here, didn't betray me that you are an Asian- American origin, so I back you up to be sure that literature everywhere is literature faithfully conveying and expressing for a long time its specific individuality of a nation culture, so we must respect the culture of nations in our studies whether we are satisfied or non-satisfied because this deep thought we have to gather is not a simple thing but it does like a thread of a history background , so that we need to repeat our contemplation again and again and however we read more, no doubt we shall deduce or getting a satisfactory notion.