RE-SIGNED SUBJECTS: WOMEN, WORK, AND WORLD IN THE FICTION OF CARLOS BULOSAN AND HISAYE YAMAMOTO

Finally, while Bulosan's Popular Front political stance has been criticized for its "universalizing vision that oftentimes occludes the specificities and differences among various political movements" (Lee 35), I would argue that one of the key contradictions within America is its lack of a sufficiently universalizing vision, one that conceives of gender and sexuality as central to implementing social equality. Allos's internationalism does not substantially recognize the pressing need to contest the subordination of women, which leads Lee to argue that "[w]hile national directives on sexuality may underlie Bulosan's textual subordination of women as laboring subjects, it may also be the case that this cross-racial, egalitarian brotherhood (of labor) is secured by the objectification of women" (37). I have shown, however, that Bulosan's cross-racial, egalitarian alliances are not only, or even primarily, ones with brothers under the skin but also with anti-fascist women who emerge as subjects situated uneasily within discourses yoking national identity and motherhood. More broadly, I want to delink historical materialism from phallocentrism, and class-based solidarity from patriarchal relations. While historical materialism does not guarantee feminist analysis, neither does it necessarily engender male chauvinism, as alleged by some post-Marxist strands of feminism. Rejecting totalizing analyses in favor of partial paradigms ultimately leaves us unprepared to combat global capitalism. Allos's evolving perceptions of the connections between fascism in California and Spain, Mariano's realization that prostitutes and migrant fieldworkers suffer "the same terrors of poverty," and the linkage implied between Mrs. Hosoume's disempowerment and Marpo's exploitation are critical revelations that propel the reader toward a systemic understanding of oppression and resistance as well as toward a fuller sense of Bulosan's and Yamamoto's craft.

University of Colorado, Boulder

NOTES

1 I therefore focus on Bulosan much more so than on Yamamoto. This is not because I agree with Moore's privileging of Bulosan but because his work, especially America is in the Heart, is more overtly engaged with the Popular Front than Yamamoto's, and one of my concerns is to re-examine the significance of the Popular Front to Asian American Studies and vice versa. That said, I recognize that Yamamoto's place within the Popular Front needs to be more fully examined.

2 See, for example, Cheung, Articulate Silences', Elaine H. Kim, "Hisaye Yamamoto: A Woman's View"; Robert T. Rolf, "The Short Stories of Flisaye Yamamoto, Japanese American Writer"; and Slan Yogi, "Legacies Revealed: Uncovering Buried Plots in the Stories of Hisaye Yamamoto."

3 One prominent example of criticism that focuses on Yamamoto's conceptualization of class is Donald C. Goellnicht's "Transplanted Discourse in Yamamoto's 'Seventeen Syllables.'" Grace Kyungwon Hong examines the relationship between race and property rights in Yamamoto's memoir, "A Fire in Fontana."