Asian American Literature Gets a Data-Driven Rethink

What does it mean when we say “Asian American literature”? Is it every book written by someone of Asian descent? Only works that directly grapple with the Asian American experience? Or is it something else entirely? For decades, the answer to that elusive question has been up for debate. Now, a team of scholars is tackling it in a new way: by following the data.

A team at UC Berkeley, led by assistant professor Long Le-Khac with research assistants Kate Hao and Taylor Huie, just released a 1,900-entry dataset tracking what has actually been taught and cited in Asian American studies over the past 50 years. The project, called The Canon of Asian American Literature, is akin to holding up a mirror to the field itself. Instead of asking what should count, it shows what scholars have actually counted.

The results? Way more than just novels. The nearly 1,000 works by about 800 authors include plays, films, comic books, and other forms of storytelling. That breadth shows just how messy and exciting the definition of “Asian American literature” really is. But the dataset also raises some tough questions. As Berkeley News notes, the most frequently cited authors are not necessarily the most groundbreaking or diverse. They are the ones Le-Khac calls “uber credentialed.”

“The most cited authors are disproportionately graduates of elite programs, Pulitzer winners, or otherwise institutionally validated. It raises the question of whether the canon reflects excellence, or whether it is echoing broader patterns of prestige and power.”

In other words, even a canon built to challenge stereotypes might be quietly reproducing them, especially the “model minority” myth.

By making the data public, Le-Khac and his team are not just mapping the field. They are inviting an “audit.” Who gets to be considered essential? Who has been overlooked? And what do we want this canon to look like going forward?

As Le-Khac puts it, the point is not to get hung up on a definition, but to make the invisible visible. “It opens up conversations about what we want Asian American literature to be in the future.”

So maybe the better question is not what counts as Asian American literature, but what new stories are waiting to be heard. The canon is not a finished monument. It is a work in progress. And with projects like this one, we get the chance to see it not as a closed club, but as an ever expanding space where more voices, more genres, and more perspectives can contribute.

Image designed by Nami Kurita.