Birth certificates, passports, citizenship papers: these are the documents that define our official identities, that make us legible to the apparatus of the state. For Asian Americans, such documents are often central to our family narratives, marking a history of migration, departure and arrival, rejection or belonging. Yet we are also well aware of what such official documents erase, enforce, or repress. Kenji Liu's Map of an Onion begins with a reflection on the role of such documents in shaping identity but the mapping Liu offers us in this collection rejects the sharp boundaries of the...
Birth certificates, passports, citizenship papers: these are the documents that define our official identities, that make us legible to the apparatus ...