Review

Reviewed Work(s): Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife by Jonathan H.X.
Lee and Kathleen M. Nadeau
Review by: Margaret Capili Magat
Source: Western Folklore, Vol. 71, No. 3/4, ENGAGING FOLKLORE: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF
ELLIOTT ORING: SPECIAL ISSUE (Summer & Fall 2012), pp. 317-320
Published by: Western States Folklore Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24550733
Accessed: 16-11-2019 02:51 UTC

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 Baking as Biography 317

children cultural values, such as economy and self reliance, as well as personal
values, such as the importance of accepting others" (98).
Tye's work invites readers to obtain both an intellectual and emotional under
standing of the erasure of female contributions as daughters look to their friends
instead of their mothers for reliable recipes, and family members forget and
dismiss the hours of labor represented by the food they take for granted. Tye's
sister barely remembers that their mother cooked, and her father's attempts to
honor his wife's labor are made difficult by his own disinterest in food. Since the
death of his wife, he has existed on hot dogs and ham sandwiches. Tye suggests
that part of the reason family members have found it difficult to fully appreci
ate their mother's cooking was Laurene's ability to cater to their tastes without
them knowing it. "Friends like Sadie Latimer and Helen Farrow appreciated how
expertly my mother orchestrated the planning and preparation of food around
my father's timetable and my brother's particular tastes, but this work went unrec
ognized within our family" (95).
As an artifact in its own right, the work speaks volumes in what it hesitates
to say. Diane Tye dedicates the book to her parents, but otherwise Laurene's
name does not appear until page six. We are introduced to Laurene as a mother,
and that is primarily how she is referenced, as wife and mother instead of by
personal name. In addition, we do not read about the pleasure quotient these
recipes contain. Tye explains that her mother prepared straightforward, gener
ally sweet, baked goods. Particularly for Tye and her brother Mark, tasting these
foods evokes strong memories and feelings of security. Tye prepares her mother's
recipes for her own children and extended family on holidays. She does so to pre
serve a sensory memory of her mother, so that her children can know what their
grandmother's bar cookies taste like, but still her language about these goods is
utilitarian. We do not learn whether she receives physical pleasure from these
items independent of their emotional resonance.
This work accessibly and ably illustrates sophisticated ideas. Teachers will find
it useful for undergraduate and graduate courses in Folklore, Anthropology,
Women's Studies, and Food Studies.

Kate Holbrook

Boston University

Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife. Three volumes. Edited by

Jonathan H.X. Lee and Kathleen M. Nadeau. (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO,
2010. Pp. 1254, preface, acknowledgments, introduction, photographs, bibli
ography, index. $265.00 cloth.)

This is one of those works that may prove to be a blessing as well as a curse to
the study of folklore, called "folkloristics" since 1889 (Dundes 2005:386). It
is the former for allowing "folklore" and "folklife" to enter into mainstream
discussion of Asian Americans in the United States, a group largely ignored
in academia except by Asian American Studies. In some ways, however, the
encyclopedia continues to perpetuate misconceptions of what folkloristics is by
its weak grasp of genre as seen in its organization and entries, the absence of

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318 Book Reviews

discussion on the importance of text, context, and textur

especially in the appendix examples of narratives, and th
ies done in the last forty years by folklorists regarding th
and ethnic identity (e.g., Stern and Cicala 1991; Brown
on genre, group, context, and performance (Feintuc
could have contributed to a more in-depth understandi
practices of Asian Americans.
For folklorists, who are no strangers to the study of eth
clopedia serves as a call for more studies of Asian Amer
inception, American folklore studies have not included
the focus has been more on other groups (Zhang 2011). D
good deal of folklorists' scholarship would have been glar
work, this is nevertheless a welcome and important publica
mitigate the dearth in studies on Asian American cultura
material culture.

This is the first encyclopedia to include in its title the folklore and folklife
of Asian Americans, a group that increased more than any other between 2000
to 2010 for a total of 17.3 million according to the 2010 U.S. Census. There
are other encyclopedias dealing with American folklore (Brunvand 1996; Watts
2007), or Asian American issues (Chen and Yu 2010), or Asian American history
and culture (Ling and Austin 2009), but not one that deals strictly with Asian
American folklore. Because it is the first, there are expectations that accompany
it, such as that the series would help elucidate understanding of what folklore
is. Although the work does this to some extent through many of its descriptive
entries, analysis of what it all means from a folklore perspective of why people
do what they do, is for the most part, missing. There are, thankfully, excep
tions, such as the excellent sections on Pacific Islander Americans and Filipino
Americans. But entries are uneven, seen for example, in the several instances of
the use of "myth" to equate to an "untrue" belief as it is generally understood in
popular culture. Such a definition of "myth" may be expected in newspapers or
in websites, but not in an academic work titled as such and marketed to "estab
lished scholars," policy makers, and students, with folklore scholars ostensibly
among them.
The introductory essay by editorsjonathan H.X. Lee and Kathleen M. Nadeau
is helpful in introducing folklore definitions, but it could have been a much lon
ger piece that addressed more issues related to genre, one of the cornerstones
of folklore scholarship. For example, the fine explanation of "Narrative" by
Beverly Butcher could have been incorporated in the front, rather than buried
on page 934. It is understood that different ethnic groups have native categories
that are not included in the Western concept of "genre;" however, a more than
cursory mention of critical folklore scholarship is beneficial in analyzing Asian
American indigenous genres and other cultural expressions that arise in today's
transnational world.

The encyclopedia comes with a pleasing cover design and clear typeset, and
the "History, People, and Culture" for each section that acquaints readers with
a group's history is well done. The editors commendably wished to be culturally
specific, dividing the encyclopedia into twenty-three Asian American communi
ties including subgroups, and under each of those sections are "essay topics"
such as "Arts and Crafts," "Heroes and Heroines," and "Rites of Passages." But
each of the essay topics could have been better utilized as an organizational tool

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 Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife 319

under which topics specific for each group could then be placed for ease of use
and for genre clarity. For example, "Arts and Crafts" is separated from "Home
Decoration" but sometimes appears as "Arts and Crafts and Home Decoration"
when both could have been subheadings under "Material Culture," had there
been such a heading. In the Filipino American section, there is an essay on
"Debutantes," and later, an essay under "Rites of Passage" which contains another
mention of the debut. But no cross references direct the reader to either entry.
Cross references are generally inconsistent; sometimes appearing, sometimes
not. There is a redundancy that is to be expected in a work of this nature, but
the topic of "Beauty Standards" and "Mestijaze" in the Filipino American section
could have all been organized under "Belief Systems," had there been one.
Headings are puzzling in their variation, such as "Children's Folk Songs,"
under Chinese Americans, which becomes "Children's and Folk Song" for
Filipino Americans, and "Folk Songs" for Hmong Americans. There is "Children's
Folklore" in the Thai American section while under Mongolian Americans there
is a listing simply of "Children" separate from "Music and Folk Song." Children
are often the transmitters of folk song but they are not the only ones who are
the active bearers in an ethnic group. A heading such as "Children's Folk Songs"
implies that folk songs can only be found in this age group, especially if there is
no other entry for "Folk Music" for that particular ethnic group.
The appendix includes Asian American folktales "retold" by contributors,
but despite the short background about the general telling of the tales and use
it should have also included the specific context of when and how the teller of
the tale first heard the story, something required from beginning students of
folklore. It is a testament to the rich material that this reader was left wishing for
a conclusion that could have given some comparative analysis. In the sampling
of folktales, the entry of a Filipino American tale "Siblaw Taraw" or "The Star
Maiden" (also known as "The Swan Maiden") tells of a beautiful winged creature
from heaven who ends up marrying the man who spies on her, not knowing he
has stolen one of her wings to prevent her departure. The introduction to this
tale mentions that "the star maiden motif is common in Philippine folklore"
(1226). Yet a cursory search of folktales that have the same motif and belonging
to AT 400*, "The Swan Maid" (Aarne and Thompson 1961), reveals that ver
sions of this popular folktale are found beyond the Philippines; in fact, it is told
throughout Southeast Asia and Europe as well.
Also, anyone looking up the fascinating folklore that resulted from the min
gling of Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans, and Okinawans in Hawaii's sugar planta
tions would not find it here. There is no mention of folk songs such as "hole
hole bushi," (hole means to peel in Hawaiian, and bushi is tune in Japanese), sang
mostly by women workers that told of the struggles they faced in America, nor
is there any entry about the foodways shared in the plantations that gave rise to
dishes such as chicken papaya, manapua, and chicken Hekka that are enjoyed
in Hawai'i today. The addition of other little-known historical events usually
excluded from the discourse involving Asian Americans and U.S. history would
also be helpful, such as the 1924 Battle at Hanap p , Hawai'i which killed sixteen
Filipinos and four policemen, resulting in the arrest of over 100 Filipinos. This
topic could assist the reader's understanding of the ethnic tensions (both eso
teric and exoteric) that arose when sugar workers began to fight for their rights.
These minor irritations do not take away the value of this work, which is
well suited for the college student enrolled in an ethnic studies course since

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320 Book Reviews

it readily presents often forgotten histories. Asian Ame

that shares common factors with folkloristics: it is on co
2010:478), it is concerned with ethnicity and groups, and
It began in political activism in the 1960s, while the stud
in the nationalism movements in eighteenth century Eu
continued partnership between the two fields would be
provide a much needed symbiotic relationship for illustra
by Asian Americans today. But there are times when t
more like an Asian American Studies reader. If used in an
class, an accompanying reader that includes the core con
folkloristics should also be used as a companion guide. It
future revisions could incorporate more folklore scholarsh
enriching the analyses of the complex and intriguing ev
Americans and their folklore.

Margaret Capili Magat

Los Angeles, California

WORKS CITED

Aarne, Anti and Stith Thompson. 1961. The Types of the Folktale: A Classific
Bibliography. 2nd revision. FF Communications No. 184. Helsinki: A
Scientarum Fennica.

Bendix, Regina. 1997. In Search of Authenticity. The Formation of Folklore Studies.

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Brown, Linda, and Kay Mussell, eds. 1984. Ethnic and Regional Foodways in
the United States: The Performance of Group Identity. Rnoxville: University of
Tennessee Press.

Brunvand, Jan, ed. 1996. American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland
Pub.

Chan, Sucheng, 2010. Whither Asian American Studies? In Asian American

Studies Now: A Critical Reader, edited by Jean Yu-wen Shen Wu and Thomas
Chen, 477-95. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Dundes, Alan. 2005. "Folkloristics in the Twenty-First Century." Journal of
American Folklore 118:385-408.

Feintuch, Burt, ed. 2003. Eight Words for the Study of Expressive Culture. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.
Ling, Huping, and Allan Austin, eds. 2009. Asian American History and Culture: An
Encyclopedia. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Chen, Edith Wen-Chu, and Grace J. Yoo. eds. 2010. Encyclopedia of Asian American
Issues Today. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press.
Stern, Stephen, and John Cicala, eds. 1991. Creative Ethnicity: Symbols and
Strategies of Contemporary Ethnic Life. Logan: Utah State University Press.
Watts, Linda S. 2007. Encyclopedia of American Folklore. New York: Facts on File
Library of American Literature.
Zhang, Juwen. 2011. Integrating (Mapping) Asian American Folklore in
American Folkloristics. Paper presented at the Western States Folklore
Society annual conference, Los Angeles, California.

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