Reappropriating and Remasculinizing Chinese American Manhood.

The article focuses on the feminization and emasculation of Chinese American men within American culture and literature, examining how these racialized gender stereotypes have been challenged and reappropriated by Chinese American male writers. It discusses the backlash against Maxine Hong Kingston’s *The Woman Warrior* by male critics like Frank Chin, who accuse her of perpetuating stereotypes that depict Chinese American men as weak and sexist, while highlighting the historically enforced feminization linked to Orientalist discourse and exclusionary immigration policies. The article analyzes Chin’s literary efforts, particularly in *Donald Duk*, to reconstruct a Chinese American heroic tradition rooted in masculine Confucian ideals as a form of resistance, alongside Shawn Wong’s *American Knees*, which contests emasculating stereotypes by portraying sexually confident and socially successful Chinese American men. It also critiques Chin’s exclusion of Chinese American women from these masculine narratives and Wong’s problematic portrayals of immigrant Asian women, emphasizing the complexities of race, gender, and identity in Chinese American literature and the ongoing negotiation of masculinity within a context of racialized oppression.