ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. This book sets out to study literary representations of Asian movement in America, especially its connection to cultural assimilation and socio-economic mobility. It shows how mobility across the lines of class, gender, ethnicity, and gastronomy, among others, speaks to Asian assimilation. The book acknowledges socio-economic class as an important factor that differentiates Asian travel from its European American counterpart as well as separates the haves and have-nots among Asians. It traces the itinerary of the Chinese woman Mulberry/Peach from wartime China, through "white terror"-inflicted Taiwan, to the United States. The book looks at cross-ethnic food consumption as another form of mobility (boundary crossing) and read the male protagonist Sterling Lung's cross-cultural eating/cooking as an endeavor to move up the socio-economic ladder and participate in the model minority discourse.
