自從一九八一年起，我在大學裡教授亞／太美國文學，至今已有二十幾年了。這篇文章的想法大多來自於課堂上的經驗。在這篇文章裡，我運用移民、離散與本土性三個批評典範來分析亞／太美國文學過去四十年的發展。我指出，在美國以及亞美文學裡, 離散範式並未完全取代移民範式, 儘管歷史證據顯示移民範式的確已逐漸淡出亞美文學研究的核心。我亦指出（以夏威夷為代表的）本土性典範對亞美文學發展的重要性，以及這個範式如何受到移民與離散兩個範式的影響。而近年來的跨國主義浪潮不只改變了亞／太美國文學的樣貌，更多本土性想像造成衝擊。在文章裡，我會在適當之處談及不同的亞／太美國文學作品。這不只是為了凸顯亞／太美國文學的多種面貌，同時也是為了指出這多種多樣的風貌，對進入二十一世紀的我們仍將具有重要的批判意義。

This is a “teacherly＂ paper, as it springs from my own experiences of teaching Asian/Pacific American literature since 1981. In this paper, I analyze Asian American literature in three distinct yet interrelated paradigms: the Asian American literature of immigration, the Asian American literature of diaspora, and the indigenous literature of Pacific America, namely of Hawai‘i. I argue that the diasporic model has not entirely displaced or replaced the immigration one in the United States and in Asian American literature in spite of compelling historical evidence that by now the earlier established paradigm should have shifted into a background. I also speak of the third paradigm, of Pacific Islander indigeneity in literature, and about how this category especially is impacted by the other two paradigms and by trends in transnationalism as well. I make references to various Asian/Pacific American literary works whenever appropriate not only to suggest the many faces of Asian/Pacific American literature as a corpus of creative and scholarly production but also to pinpoint the critical significances it continues to bear on us as we wade through the twenty-first century.