Some Reflections on Asian-Canadian Poetry and Culture: Fred Wah, Joy Kogawa, Roy Miki, and Others

Abstract

For Fred Wah, Joy Kogawa, Roy Miki, and other [Asian-Canadian writers], the nature of writing and the collision of identities lead to creative and painful tensions. Home and exile, inside and outside, then and now, pure and mixed are all oppositions that inform their actual and fictional worlds. Whereas Miki sees the instability of being Japanese-Canadian, Wah lives and explores in his writing his hybrid Chinese-European identities and Kogawa sees a future in Canada of mixed identities.