"If you feel like you haven’t seen enough Asian American literature/art revolving around the generational gap between Asian females lately, check out the new [2001] cover of DICTEE. The original front and back covers of Dictee were designed by Cha, where the front cover purposely features an obscure landscape atypical on covers of Asian American books. The original back cover, equally obscure features a cropped picture of nine girls without any textual explanation, a purposeful attempt to decontextualize the book to bring up the notion of indeterminancy. However, the new cover on the UC press edition [2001] of Dictee features a picture of Cha’s mother, signifying loudly that Dictee is an Asian American novel that follows the trite dominant immigrant narrative of generational conflicts between Asian American women. Perhaps the new cover will sell the book better, especially since the new back cover also includes a blurb on the life and art of Theresa Cha, going against the purposeful lack of explanation on the original back cover.

However, instead of getting mad at UC press for changing the original, we should realize that Cha’s work has always anticipated change, for she likes to bring attention to the ephemerality of things. Dictee, now changed by the publisher, makes us question the way we tend to fetishize the authenticity of the artist, comparable the fetishization of the authentic “other” experience. Even Cha herself said in her art:

i address you/

as i would a distant relative/

as if a distant relative/

seen only heard only through someone else’s/

description.”

                                                          – authored by kaori takee and yueni zhong, in Hardboiled 5.2 (2001).

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