| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- 1. The Urban Oracle Bones of Our Laundry: Channeling China's Last Emperor and Rock 'n' Roll's First Opera -- 2. Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting ... or Faking It -- 3. Our Laundry's Roots in Resistance: Family Reunification Along Flushing's Fault Line -- 4. It's Only a Paper Son: The Chinatown Bachelor Society -- 5. Addressees -- 6. Disappearing Acts: That Old-Time Religion -- 7. Chinese Rocks: Opium, the Chinese Diaspora and Soul ... and Punk Rock -- 8. A Sort of Homecoming: But Where Are You Really From |
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9. The Bigger Picture, On Screen and Off -- 10. Trip the Light, Gorgeous Mosaic: Double Happiness, Discovering Playwriting and Activism -- 11. Commencement Ceremonies: Leaving Flushing -- 12. Village Pilgrimage for a Marriage Blessing -- 13. Life Dances On: Our Town in China -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Photographs follow page -- About the Author -- Series |
| Summary |
"Our Laundry, Our Town is a memoir that decodes and processes the fractured urban oracle bones of Alvin Eng's growing up in the Flushing, Queens, a neighborhood of that singular universe that was New York City in the 1970s. Back then, his family was one of the few immigrant Chinese families there. His parents had an arranged marriage and ran a Chinese Hand Laundry. From behind the counter of his parent's laundry and within the confines of our household that was rooted in a different century and culture, he sought to reconcile this insular home life with the turbulent yet inspiring street life that was all around them--from faux tv martial arts stars to punk rock. In the 1970s, NYC, like most of the world, was in the throes of regenerating itself in the wake of major social and cultural changes resulting from the Counterculture and Civil Rights movements. These same systemic conflicts form the core of our current global reckoning on representation and identity. By the 1980s, Flushing had become NYC's second Chinatown. But Alvin remained one of Flushing's few Chinese citizens who could not speak fluent Chinese. As a theatre practitioner and professor in the 21st century, discovering the under-chronicled Chinese influence on Thornton Wilder's seminal Americana drama, Our Town, became the unlikely catalyst for a psyche-healing pilgrimage. At City University of Hong Kong, Alvin and his wife, director/dramaturg Wendy Wasdahl, led a Fulbright Specialist devised theatre residency on the Chinese influence on Our Town. From this residency, the US Consulate Guangzhou invited Alvin to perform my Our Town-inspired solo, The Last Emperor of Flushing, in his family's ancestral Guangdong Province of southern China. Learning to proudly tell his own story on stage and now on the page has made him whole. As cities, classrooms, cultures, and communities the world over continue to re-examine the parameters of diversity, equity, and inclusion, Our Laundry, Our Town will reverberate with a broad readership"-- Provided by publisher |
| Analysis |
1970s New York City |
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Asian American memoir |
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Asian American playwright |
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Chinese American memoir |
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Chinese Hand Laundry |
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Downtown NYC Theatre |
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Gorgeous Mosaic |
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New York City memoir |
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Thornton Wilder Our Town |
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Toisan Chinese Immigration |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on April 22, 2022) |
| Subject |
Eng, Alvin, 1962-
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| SUBJECT |
Eng, Alvin, 1962-
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Eng, Alvin, 1962- fast |
| Subject |
Dramatists, American -- 20th century -- Biography
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Chinese Americans -- Biography
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BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / Asian & Asian American.
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Chinese Americans
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Dramatists, American
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| Genre/Form |
autobiographies (literary works)
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Autobiographies
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Biographies
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Biographies.
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Autobiographies.
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Biographies.
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Autobiographies.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781531500382 |
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1531500382 |
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