ABSTRACT
This is a simple story. So long as there is immigration from Asia there will be a first generation serving both as creator and subject for Asian-American literature. Call them F.O.B. s, F.O.J.s, or borrowing a term from an earlier generation, greenhorns, these are the peoples whose stories are frequently, and rightly, lumped under such innocuous titles as “the new Americans” or “becoming American.” But the stories are seldom innocuous for they all constitute variations on the epic immigrant theme: uprooting, removal, and the new life in the promised land.
