Nam Le and Andrew's Lecture

In Andrew's lecture, he talks about the burden of representation to Asian American writers face in literature. They are expected to represent their race and culture to middle aged white women, which is a bias not faced by white people. In a way, the market of middle aged white female readers fetishize the struggle of people of color, having their views on people of color based on books that they've read. They only see people of color as their narrative, not as people. Nam Le's story subtly satirizes that, presenting his story as an double entendre to both satisfy his audience and make fun of them. He asserts his identity as an Asian American writer.

In class, Professor Maira talked about how The Kite Runner was used justification for the Afghan War, but does the burden of representation not falls on Hosseini also? He is also Asian American, so can he not write about his home country and criticize parts of his culture without it being deemed as imperialist propaganda? I think that it is not the fault of the author for what he writes about his own culture, but the audience using that to create a perceived notion of a group of people that they've never encountered.