Karen Tei Yamashita's challenge: Immigrants moving with the changing landscape

Asian American literature has rapidly evolved in terms of the increased volume of the body of this literature, critical acclaim, and commercial success. With the increasing recognition of Asian American literature, however, the works of the Japanese American author Karen Tei Yamashita have not been given the critical attention that they deserve. In her works, she has repeatedly dealt with the theme of mobility, following one of the literary traditions of the United States. Through analyses of her three novels, this dissertation explores Yamashita's diasporic, counter-hegemonic worldview, which emphasizes the importance of making a home in the new landscape with "a postmodern ethic of place."; In discussing Yamashita's novels, I use three critical frameworks: ecofeminism, postmodernism, and multiculturalism. I treat her three novels according to the chronological order of their production: Brazil-Maru, Through the Are of the Rain Forest, and Tropic of Orange . In addition, I include three works by other Japanese American writers---All I Asking For Is My Body by Milton Murayama, Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto, and My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki---to serve as a foil for Yamashita's works, highlighting her uniqueness.; I discuss the theme of mobility in Brazil-Maru and All I Asking For Is My Body in terms of different motivations for immigration and the consequences of such differing motivations. Next, I examine Through the Arc of the Rain Forest and Epitaph for a Peach in terms of how their different modes of representation address similar environmental issues, but to a different degree of impact. Then I consider the politics of mobility in Yamashita's Tropic of Orange and compare this postmodern novel with Ozeki's My Year of Meats, a documentary novel, to analyze their different views of multiculturalism.; In the conclusion, I stress Yamashita's positively ecofeminist and multicultural worldview, which is neither assimilationist nor nationalist. With her unique self-identity as a new immigrant to the United States, Yamashita is actively expressing her political concerns about America, the landscape of which is ever changing with immigrants moving with their landscapes.