THIS IS ONE of a series of 20 “literary addresses” commissioned by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and the Association for Asian American Studies, as part of the Center’s 20th anniversary celebration and its July 2017 Smithsonian Asian American Literature Festival. Penned by leading Asian-American poets, writers, playwrights, graphic novelists, and literary scholars, the addresses assess the state and future of Asian-American literature and offer a wide-spanning reimagination of its place and consequence.

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Rachel Masilamani is a Pittsburgh-based cartoonist whose work has appeared in such venues as Indiana Review, Graphic Classics, and Aster(ix). She is currently working on a new graphic novel, Nonpartum, which is being published in installments on Mutha Magazine.