This is a Japanese edition/translation of Articulate Silences

This chapter furnishes a rainbow cross section of California through Asian American lenses. Unsettling memories about Asia and racial preconceptions haunt the Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese newcomers, weakening their footholds on the West Coast. Several Bay Area authors envision the possibility of building an inclusive community. The Southern Californian writers, in contrast, paint a grim picture of race relations, exposing mutual prejudices and structural inequalities that erupt in hostile behavior and urban strife. Most individual quests are embedded in the broader historical drama.

This book bridges comparative literature and American studies by using an intercultural and bilingual approach to Chinese American literature.

In A Map of Betrayal Ha Jin interweaves his personal experience with his historical and political concerns to create a novel based loosely on the case of Larry Wu-Tai Chin, a PRC spy who infiltrated the CIA for thirty years. The protagonist, Gary Shang, is a composite of Chin and Jin. The author infuses his sensibility as an accidental immigrant caught between worlds in mapping Gary’s geographical, psychological, and linguistic odysseys. The trope of doubling runs through the text, underscoring the themes of duplicity and self-division and creating a contrapuntal score. Thematically, the novel interrogates the relationship between the state and the individual by exploring reciprocal betrayal, dual national allegiance, bilingualism, repressed historical trauma, political and personal loyalties—themes connecting Jin, Chin, Gary and his grandson, Ben. Structurally, it alternates between Gary’s third person account and her daughter’s first person account, covering two historical periods, representing different generations, and orchestrating multiple national(ist) perspectives.

Methacrolein (MACR) and methyl vinyl ketone (MVK) are major oxidation products of isoprene, but they also have primary emissions in urban environments, for example from fuel use. To examine whether MACR and MVK could be used as a direct measurement of the oxidation rate of isoprene in an urban setting, the diurnal variations of isoprene, MACR and MVK were characterized at an urban site in Hong Kong from September to November, 2010. Ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx) were simultaneously monitored. The average isoprene mixing ratio was 252±204pptv, with a bell-shaped distribution observed on most sampling days. Higher levels of isoprene were recorded in the beginning of the sampling period, when the temperature was higher. The average mixing ratios of MACR and MVK were 101±85pptv and 175±131pptv, respectively. While isoprene, MACR and MVK experienced peak concentrations from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., increased levels of MACR and MVK during the morning rush hour did not coincide with isoprene. The low associations between isoprene and MACR/MVK suggest that either MACR/MVK were not formed from local isoprene oxidation and/or they could partly originate from primary emissions such as fuel evaporation or combustion. Statistical analyses of linear regression and positive matrix factorization revealed that approximately 20-29% of the measured MACR and MVK was associated with biogenic emissions, and 55-71% was impacted by vehicular emissions, particularly during morning rush hours. Since MACR and MVK originated from both primary emissions and biogenic emissions at this urban site, they can therefore overestimate the actual rate of isoprene oxidation and its contribution to O3 production in urban areas with strong primary emissions. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.