Cathy Song's Picture Bride, published by Yale University Press in 1986, is a touching lyric euology to this unlikely union. In the case of Korean-American literature, some of the manifest themes concern the plight of Koreans during the Colonial period, the loss of identity, appropriation of cultural elements from Koreas, and racism pervades diasporic litertature.

This paper explores Korea's tradition within the modern space of America. Within the last three years or so, Korean-American literature also experienced a Renaissance. Notable younger generation of Korean-American writers published their works. There is Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker that most of us have at least heard of, followed by Heinz Insu Fenkl's Memories of My Ghost Broher (1996), and Norea Okja Keller's Comfort Women (1997), to mention only a few. About two thirds of my course consisted of Korean-American fiction.

A selected reading of Korean-American text reveals strong cultural and historical ties between the writer and Korea. The experiences of Younghill Kang who left Korea during the Colonial Period (1910-1945), fictionalized in his East Goes West: The Making of an Oriental Yankee (Scribner's, 1937) represent the life of an Asian-American during the earlier part of the century, as he crossed over from his homeland to America to face unknown challenges in the unknown land. The protagonists of Heartless and East Goes West experience initial bewilderment in their struggles between the traditional and modern value systems.

Younghill Kang's East Goes West is a representative Korean-American literature prior to the New Wave Immigration of the 1960s. Rather than a portrayal of Korean-American lives, much of Kang's East Goes West consists of a series of vignettes of American life. The protagonist Chungpa Han has a much more generalized identity of an Asian-American. Despite its importance as a valuable source of early Asian American lives, then, Kang's East Goes West does not provide an easy bridge to traverse between Korea and America. Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker also shares the same aspect. It is more feasible to compare these works with those of other Asian-American writers.

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