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Maxine Hong Kingston (; born Maxine Ting Ting Hong; October 27, 1940) is an American novelist. She is a professor emerita at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, where she graduated with a B.A. in English in 1962. Kingston has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese Americans. Kingston has contributed to the
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
movement with such works as her memoir '' The Woman Warrior'', which discusses
gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
and
ethnicity An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...
and how these concepts affect the lives of women. She has received several awards for her contributions to Chinese American literature, including the
National Book Award for Nonfiction The National Book Award for Nonfiction is one of five US annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". The panelists a ...
in 1981 for '' China Men''.This was the award for hardcover "General Nonfiction".
From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were several nonfiction subcategories including General Nonfiction, with dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories.
Kingston has received significant criticism for reinforcing
racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
stereotypes in her work and for fictionalizing traditional Chinese stories in order to appeal to Western perceptions of Chinese people. She has also garnered criticism from female Asian scholars for her "'over-exaggeration' of Asian American female oppression".


Life and career

Kingston was born Maxine Ting Ting Hong on October 27, 1940, in
Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County in the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. It is the most populous city in the county, the List of municipal ...
, to first-generation Chinese immigrants parents: her father, Tom Hong (d. 1991) and her mother, Ying Lan Chew. She was the third of eight children and the oldest of the six born in the United States. In
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, Tom Hong worked as a professional scholar and teacher in his home village of Sun Woi, near Canton. In 1925, Hong left China for the United States in search of better prospects. However, the
Chinese Exclusion Act The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a United States Code, United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law made exceptions for travelers an ...
of 1882—a xenophobic response to the influx of Chinese workers in the nineteenth century—was still in effect, preventing Hong from legally entering the United States. He attempted to enter from Cuba twice before finally succeeding in 1927. Furthermore, early-twentieth-century U.S. employment laws were rife with racism, leaving little interest in hiring a well-educated Chinese immigrant. Hong had been a scholar in his home village of Sun Woi, near Canton. However, in America, Hong was limited to working menial jobs - washing windows and doing laundry. He saved his earnings and became the manager of an illegal gambling house, which led him to get arrested numerous times. Hong "was canny about his arrests, never giving his real name and—because he apparently sensed that quite a few people thought that all Chinese looked alike—inventing a different name for each arrest. Consequently, he never acquired a police record in his own name." Hong was able to bring his wife over in 1939. During the fifteen years they were separated, Kingston's mother, Chew, had studied Western medicine and become a doctor. Yet in Stockton, she was just another immigrant. Shortly thereafter, Kingston was born; she was named "Maxine" after a blonde patron at the gambling house who was always remarkably lucky. Kingston, a quiet child, didn’t learn English until age five. She recalls an I.Q. test once recording her score as zero. Asked to paint a picture for class, she presented a black sheet, representing stage curtains before a show. Her earliest memories are of World War II—cousins in uniform. Fascinated by war and soldiers, she grew up hearing her mother recount China's history as a continuous cycle of conquest and conflict: “We were always losers. We were always on the run.” At a young age, Kingston was drawn to writing and won a five-dollar prize from ''Girl Scout Magazine'' for an essay she wrote titled "I Am an American". She majored in
engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...
at
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, before switching to English. She met her husband, actor Earll Kingston, while they were both students at Berkeley, and they married in 1962. Kingston then began her career as a high school teacher. Their son, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, was born in 1963. From 1965 to 1967, Maxine taught English and mathematics at Sunset High School in
Hayward, California Hayward is a city located in Alameda County, California, United States, in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of 162,954 as of 2020, Hayward is the sixth largest city in the Bay Area, and the third largest in ...
. After relocating to
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...
, her boredom in a lonely hotel 80 miles north of Oahu caused Maxine to begin writing extensively, finally completing and publishing her first book, ''The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts'', in 1976. She began teaching English at the
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system and houses the main offic ...
that same year. By 1981 she had moved on to teach at Berkeley. Her writing often reflects on her cultural heritage and blends fiction with non-fiction. Among her works are '' The Woman Warrior'' (1976), awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and '' China Men'' (1980), awarded the
National Book Award for Nonfiction The National Book Award for Nonfiction is one of five US annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". The panelists a ...
. She has written one novel, '' Tripmaster Monkey,'' a story depicting a protagonist based on the mythical Chinese character Sun Wu Kong. Subsequent books include '' To Be the Poet'' and '' The Fifth Book of Peace.'' A public television documentary produced by Joan Saffa, Stephen Talbot and Gayle K. Yamada, ''Maxine Hong Kingston: Talking Story,'' was released in 1990. Narrated by actor B.D. Wong and featuring notable Asian-American authors such as Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang, it explored Kingston's life, paying particular attention to her commentary on cultural heritage and both sexual and racial oppression. The production was awarded the CINE Golden Eagle in 1990. Kingston also participated in the production of
Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers; June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Council ...
' PBS historical documentary, ''Becoming American: The Chinese Experience''. Kingston was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
. She was a member of the committee to choose the design for the
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
commemorative quarter. In 2003, Kingston was arrested in Washington, D.C. while protesting against the impending Iraq War. The protest, which took place on
International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive righ ...
(March 8), was coordinated by the women-initiated organization Code Pink. Kingston refused to leave the street after being instructed to do so by local police forces. She shared a jail cell with authors
Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awa ...
and
Terry Tempest Williams Terry Tempest Williams (born September 8, 1955) is an American writer, educator, conservationist, and activist. Williams' writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of Utah. Her work foc ...
, who were also participants in the demonstration. Kingston's anti-war stance has significantly trickled into her work; she has stated that writing ''The Fifth Book of Peace'' was initiated and inspired by growing up during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at Emma Willard School in September 2005. In April, 2007, Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for ''Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace'' (2006), an anthology which she edited. In July, 2014, Kingston was awarded the 2013
National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
by
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
. In Spring 2023, Kingston was awarded the Emerson-Thoreau Medal for distinguished achievement in the field of literature by the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
She currently resides in Oakland, California where she is retired and maintains her garden.


Influences

In an interview published in ''American Literary History'', Kingston disclosed her admiration for
Walt Whitman Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...
,
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
, and William Carlos Williams, who were inspirational influences for her work, shaping her analysis of
gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field n ...
. Kingston said of Walt Whitman's work,
I like the rhythm of his language and the freedom and the wildness of it. It's so American. And also his vision of a new kind of human being that was going to be formed in this country—although he never specifically said Chinese—ethnic Chinese also—I'd like to think he meant all kinds of people. And also I love that throughout ''Leaves of Grass'' he always says 'men and women,' 'male and female.' He's so different from other writers of his time, and even of this time. Even a hundred years ago he included women and he always used hose phrases 'men and women,' 'male and female.'
Kingston named the main character of '' Tripmaster Monkey'' (1989) Wittman Ah Sing, after Walt Whitman. Of Woolf, Kingston stated:
I found that whenever I come to a low point in my life or in my work, when I read Virginia Woolf's ''Orlando'', that always seems to get my life force moving again. I just love the way she can make one character live for four hundred years, and that Orlando can be a man. Orlando can be a woman. Virginia broke through constraints of time, of gender, of culture.
Similarly, Kingston's praise of William Carlos Williams expresses her appreciation of his seemingly genderless work:
I love ''In the American Grain'' because it does the same thing. Abraham Lincoln is a 'mother' of our country. He talks about this wonderful woman walking through the battlefields with her beard and shawl. I find that so freeing, that we don't have to be constrained to being just one ethnic group or one gender – both oolf and Williamsmake me feel that I can now write as a man, I can write as a black person, as a white person; I don't have to be restricted by time and physicality.


Criticism

Though Kingston's work is acclaimed by some, it has also received negative criticism, especially from some members of the
Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...
community. Playwright and novelist
Frank Chin Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940) is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre. Life and career Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California on February 25, 1940. His grandfather wo ...
has severely criticized Kingston's '' The Woman Warrior'', stating that Kingston deliberately tarnished the authenticity of Chinese tradition by altering traditional stories and myths to appeal to white sensitivities. Chin has accused Kingston of "liberally adapting raditional storiesto collude with white racist
stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...
s and to invent a 'fake' Chinese-American culture that is more palatable to the mainstream." Kingston commented on her critics' opinions in a 1990 interview in which she stated that men believe that minority women writers have "achieved success by collaborating with the white racist establishment," by "pander ngto the white taste for feminist writing... It's a one-sided argument because the women don't answer. We let them say those things because we don't want to be divisive." However, several female Asian scholars have also criticized Kingston's work. Shirley Geok-lin Lim, a professor of English at the
University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...
, stated that Kingston's "representations of patriarchal, abusive Chinese history were playing to a desire to look at Asians as an inferior spectacle". Writer Katheryn M. Fong took exception to Kingston's "distortion of the histories of China and Chinese America" and denounced Kingston for her "over-exaggerated" depiction of Chinese and Chinese American cultural misogyny.Fong, Katheryn (1977). "An Open Letter/Review". ''Bulletin for Concerned Asian Scholars''. "The problem is that non-Chinese are reading ingston'sfiction as true accounts of Chinese and Chinese American history," wrote Fong, who noted that her own father "was very loving" towards her.


Recognition


Literary prize


Awards

*
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
Writers Award, 1980 *
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
Writers Award, 1982 * National Humanities Medal, 1997 * Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asian American Literary Awards, 2006 * Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the
National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established with the goal "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: ...
, 2008 * Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature Award, 2011 *
National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
, 2013 Emerson-Thoreau Medal


Selected works

* '' No Name Woman'' (essay), 1975 * '' The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts'', 1976 * '' China Men'', Knopf, 1980 * ''Hawai'i One Summer'', 1987 * ''Through the Black Curtain'', 1987 * '' Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book'', 1989 * ''To Be the Poet'', 2002 * ''The Fifth Book of Peace'', 2003 * ''Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace'', 2006 * '' I Love a Broad Margin to My Life'', 2011


Notes


References


Literature

* Viet Thanh Nguyen: ''The woman warrior, China men, Tripmaster monkey, Hawai'i one summer, other writings'', New York: The Library of America, 2022,


External links


Maxine Hong Kingston: Talking Story 1990
(video)

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070525142111/http://www.uctv.tv/library-popup.asp?showID=8588 Reading at UC Berkeley, February 5, 2004(video)
Voices from the Gaps biography

Literary Encyclopedia
(in-progress)
Guide to the Maxine Hong Kingston Papers
at The Bancroft Library
October 2007 interview with Maxine Hong Kingston
discussing war and peace

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kingston, Maxine Hong 1940 births Living people 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers 20th-century short story writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American short story writers 21st-century American women writers American Book Award winners American feminist writers American memoirists American novelists of Chinese descent American short story writers of Chinese descent American women memoirists American women novelists American women short story writers American women writers of Chinese descent Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters National Book Award winners National Humanities Medal recipients Postmodern feminists Postmodern writers Sunset High School (Hayward, California) alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty United States National Medal of Arts recipients Writers from Hawaii Writers from Oakland, California Writers from Stockton, California