Becoming a Korean American cowgirl: Performing ethnicity in “The Lone Night Cantina” from Don Lee’s Yellow: Stories (2001)

Abstract

Don Lee’s short story collection Yellow: Stories (2001) is set in a contemporary, post-immigrant US. In Lee’s ostensibly post-racial settings, race and racialization remain salient factors in defining the Asian American identities of his characters even as their agency and self-determination are acknowledged. The dialectic negotiation of ethnic identities is especially evident in “The Lone Night Cantina,” which presents a more complicated and protean portrait of gendered ethnicity that remains as yet unexplored. Coupling performance theory with Tina Chen’s politics of impersonation, we argue that Annie Yung’s impersonation of a cowgirl simultaneously lays claim to her identity as an American citizen while challenging the notion of an authentic American identity. After a brief overview of the theoretical framework we use to address the issues of race and ethnicity, we discuss Annie’s engagement with ethnic stereotypes—both Asian and American—to highlight the exclusionary impetus of US nationhood and the continuing struggle to assert a coherent identity. Finally, we comment on the limitations of the story’s postmodern approach to identity by considering Annie’s inability to find a satisfactory resolution to her identity crisis.

Keywords

• don lee
• yellow: stories
• asian american identity
• ethnicity
• performance