多位亞裔美國女作家作品中所揭露的受苦經驗常以一種身體的語言表達，這些疾病敘事點出亞美自我概念及認同中與族裔位置息息相關的陰暗層面。本論文探討種族主義如何將身體差異移置為健康與疾病的兩元，從而引發亞裔美國人的疾病敘事。亞美認同中的疾病意識可追溯至十九世紀末、二十世紀初盛行的黃禍想像，亞裔美國女作家在其作品中反映出認同中的病理層面，並試圖反寫現存的黃禍想像。
本論文以不同時代、不同族裔的三個文本，即《女戰士》(The Woman Warrior)、《聽寫》(Dictee)與《食肉之年》(My Year of Meats)，來探討疾病意象由發作至潛伏、由心理疾病至真實病症、由國家至國際架構的微妙轉變。《女戰士》充滿主角對自己種族身體的警覺與焦慮，書中所描繪的身體既帶病又帶傷，以「想像疾病」為主的臆病敘事呼應移民史中最被病理化及最受排拒的中國身體。《聽寫》中發聲或其他身體行為的「感知疾病」 具現了Susan Sontag的論點：疾病就是一種佔領，為疾病所佔領的身體與註記著各種軍事與政治佔領的韓國離散史成一類比。《食肉之年》中的不孕症則是暗示種族斷脈的象徵，這與日本移民史中強烈的同化意圖有關。 這三個文本中的多病之軀代表個人及族裔集體的掙扎。這三個文本最重要的共同點是展演了書寫或發聲行為，這是疾病敘事的關鍵，書寫將罹病中被動的受害狀態轉為主動的自我療癒。
本論文的理論部分主要來自Susan Sontag及Hélèna Cixous。Sontag 的理論有利於分析蘊含於疾病意象中的文化意義，本論文尤其受益於她關於瘟疫與疾病的佔領特質的評論。Cixous對性別主義與種族主義多所著墨，她對這兩者的批判多以身體為主軸，和傳統哲學的論述大為不同。許多如歧視、排外、殖民、壓迫等社會實踐皆可歸咎於對他者身體的挪用。書寫被視是將身體由等級制度暴力解放出來的一種方法，藉由Cixous對污名的獨特註解，疾病或種族創傷透過敘述的行為，亦可成為一種賜福。

The experiences of sufferings revealed in many Asian American women’s writings are often inclined to be expressed in a somatic language. The sickness narratives disclose a darkened aspect in Asian American’s self-concept and identity, which is inextricable with their ethnicity. In this dissertation, I aim to demonstrate how the sickly body narratives in selected Asian American women’s writings arise from a racist deployment of bodily differences that are posited on the binary of healthiness and sickness. The notion of sickness incorporated into Asian Americans’ self-concept is historically rooted in the Yellow Peril imaginary that was prevailing at the turn of the last century. Asian American woman writers reflect in their works the pathological aspect of their identity and attempt to write back at the dominant Yellow Peril imaginary.
To explore the imagery of “Yellow Peril” in an ongoing Asian American social context, I select three literary texts—The Woman Warrior( 1976), Dictee (1982), My Year of Meats (1998)—to examine the nuanced transformation of the pathologized image from its inflammation to its latency, from the psychic illness to the real disease, from the national to the international scale. Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior is replete with vigilance and anxiety over one’s racial body, depicted as a body not only sickly but also wounded. The hypochondriacal narratives characterized by the diseases like leprosy, tuberculosis, and tongue-cutting, which are frequently “imagined” by the girl-narrator. The “imagined” diseases are responsive to the history of Chinese immigration, in which the Chinese body was regarded the most sickly and thus, was the most excluded. In Theresa Cha’s Dictee, the “perceived” sickness in voicing and other bodily acts embodies Susan Sontag’s comment that sickness is occupation. The body occupied by sickness is analogical to the history of Korean diaspora, which was also marked by military and political occupations. Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats features infertility, a real disease that serves a trope for racial extinction, corresponding to the history of Japanese immigration that has been noted for their endeavor to assimilate. The sickly body in the three texts embodies a history of struggles, both individual and collective. What these three texts also share in common is the performativity of an inscribing or voicing act, which is vital to sickness narratives. Writing transforms passive victimization of sickness to active self-healing.
Sontag offers useful guidelines to elaborate the cultural meaning implicit in a metaphor of sickness. I am particularly indebted to her insight into plague and the occupational dimension of sickness. Cixous’s comments about sexism and racism center on the body, which is traditionally overlooked in theoretical discourse of philosophy. Social practices like discrimination, exclusion, colonization, oppression, and so on, are traced to the appropriation of one’s body. Writing is envisioned as a way to liberate one’s body from hierarchical violence. By the virtue of Cixous’s exegesis on stigmata, the sickness or a racial trauma, through the act of narration, can become a blessing, too.