"Imagining the Nation integrates a fine appreciation of the formal features of Asian American literature with the conflict and convergence among different reading communities and the dilemma of ethnic intellectuals caught in the process of their institutionalization. By articulating Asian American structures of feeling across the nexus of East and West, black and white, nation and diaspora, the book both sets out a new terrain for Asian American literary culture and significantly strengthens the multiculturalist challenge to the American canon."

“The collection is organized into four volumes. The first (“Literary History: Criticism and Theory”) brings together the best work to define, explicitly or implicitly, the parameters of Asian American literature. It addresses its political and aesthetic significance and major issues of contention.”