UCLA

This essay advances an Asian American masculinity that blends the Confucian ideals of ren 仁 [benevolence, mutual care] and wen 文 [literacy, artistry, cultivation] with the feminist ethic of care. Through the works of David Wong Louie, Russell C. Leong, and Viet Thanh Nguyen, I advance a unique Asian American legacy, and inscribe a new benchmark for masculinity in the literary arts. For Asian Americans historically threatened with (ex)termination, and now, by anti-Asian violence around the Covid-19 plague), renwen is a survival imperative.