[AAAS 2026] Asian American Literature and the Law

Asian American literature has emerged as a critical site of representation and resistance within the context of over 150 years of exclusionary legal policies targeting Asian communities in the United States. Beginning with the Page Act of 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, federal legislation systematically constructed Asians as perpetual foreigners, legally ineligible for citizenship and fundamentally “unassimilable.” These exclusionary frameworks extended beyond immigration to encompass alien land laws, antimiscegenation statutes, and labor restrictions that relegated Asian Americans to legal and social marginality.

In response to this sustained legal violence, Asian American literature has functioned as both archive and advocacy—preserving experiences erased from official historical records while challenging dominant narratives about citizenship, belonging, and American identity. From early immigrant letters and oral histories to contemporary novels and memoirs, Asian American writers have created alternative forms of testimony that contest legal definitions of personhood and national membership. Literature has provided a space to articulate the psychological and social consequences of legal exclusion, documenting how discriminatory policies fractured families, communities, and individual lives across generations.

Moreover, Asian American literary texts have anticipated and influenced legal developments, from civil rights activism to contemporary debates over hate crime legislation and immigration reform. Writers have exposed the gap between constitutional promises of equality and lived realities of legal discrimination, while also imagining alternative futures of justice and inclusion. Asian American literature offers crucial insights into how marginalized communities have historically navigated and resisted exclusionary legal systems.

This panel seeks to examine these complex intersections, exploring how Asian American writers have engaged with, challenged, and reimagined legal narratives through their work. We welcome papers from diverse methodological approaches, including close reading analysis, historical contextualization, comparative studies, and interdisciplinary frameworks drawing from legal studies, critical race theory, and Asian American studies.

Potential Topics Include, but are not limited to:

• Historical Legal Exclusions and Literary Response
• Internment and Constitutional Rights
• Immigration Law and Family
• Model Minority Myth in Legal Contexts
• Gender, Sexuality, and Legal Regulation
• Language Rights and Legal Access
• Transnational Legal Identities
• Criminal Justice and Racialization
• Property and Economic Rights

Submission Guidelines:

Please submit an abstract of 200-250 words outlining your proposed presentation, along with a brief bio of 50 words, to Seon-Myung Yoo (seonmyungyoo@gmail.com) by October 7, 2025.