"We'd Be Rich in Korea": Value and Contingency in "Clay Walls" by Ronyoung Kim

In recent years, marginalized groups in American society have come to realize that the histories of their communities are best preserved through their own stories. "Histories" of minority groups as told by the dominant group, i.e. white America, reflect a perspective that is contingent upon the dominant group's privileged position within society: it is the dominant voice that speaks for and about the other groups. Hence, in this context, minority groups are recognized marginally, if at all. And, with respect to "Asian culture," what is narrated tends to be a stereotyped, mono-cultural interpretation of what is, in fact, many quite distinct cultures. These alien cultures are often exoticized in order to amuse mainstream America with the `underlying implication that these "other" cultures are in some way inherently inferior to the dominant American popular culture.(1) Thus, when Elaine H. Kim claims that "Asian America is after all itself a creation of white racism that groups nationalities and nativities together...", she is identifying the means by which American society devalues other cultures and maintains them in the margins (148). One such history of a particular marginalized group is Ronyoung Kim's Korean-American novel, Clay Walls. Kim, a second generation Korean-American woman, tells the story of an immigrant Korean family during the early part of this century. Kichung Kim quotes Kim as saying, "A whole generation of Korean immigrants and their American-born children could have lived and died in the United States without anyone knowing they had been here. I could not let that happen" (1). In this regard, Kim has written a work of fiction which historicizes the struggles of Korean immigrants to California who were primarily escaping the oppression of the Japanese. Structurally, the narrative is divided into three parts, each from a different individual perspective. It begins with Haesu, the wife and mother, shifts to Chun, the husband and father, and ends with Faye, the only daughter among their three children. Thus, through Faye, we encounter the early experiences of the second generation of the time, as well as that of the first generation through her parents. Although published in 1986, Clay Walls has received little attention in either the discourse of Asian American literature or that of ethnic women writers. The silence which surrounds Clay Walls provokes an inquiry into the reasons why it has not fostered a greater readership. Why does such a work seem to find itself without a larger audience, either within the Asian American communities or the broader, mainstream American community? What contingencies have relegated Clay Walls to its current marginal position? Quite likely, Clay Walls remains unexamined and under-appreciated because it neither appeals to certain current white American aesthetic expectations of Asian American literature, i.e. exoticism, nor advances any polemics with regard to the political issues of the time, even though such issues are raised in the text and would certainly invite discussion among the Korean-American readers. Finally, although Kim reveals a number of troubling circumstances confronted by Korean immigrants as they assimilate into their new culture, she does so without bitterness or animosity towards the dominant culture. Such disappointed expectations may be further exacerbated by Kim's style. The direct, rather bland, prose also lacks what Seiwoong Oh posits as necessary for "successful multicultural writing ... aggressive, if strategic, use of textual inaccessibility, so that readers can either `overhear' or `work hard to understand' its meaning" (14). Indeed, one need not work hard at all to understand Kim's meaning. In fact, as Oh points out, Kim readily interprets both Korean words and cultural codes when necessary.(2) Further, the story's structure and plot do not meet the postmodernist's expectations of non-closure and indeterminacy. Both major and minor characters resolve their conflicts, and the narrative is tightly structured so that other issues are resolved and ambiguities nearly erased. …