SOURCE: Lin, Erika T. “Mona on the Phone: The Performative Body and Racial Identity in Mona in the Promised Land.” MELUS 28, no. 2 (summer 2003): 47-57.

In the following essay, Lin draws on the gender theories of Judith Butler to argue that Jen's Mona in the Promised Land deconstructs the dominant discourse of the racialized body.

When the teenage title character in Mona in the Promised Land realizes

how in the popular conception Orientals are supposed to be exotically erotic, … all she'll want to say is, But what about my areolaless hubs? Not to say my sturdy short legs—have you ever seen a calf so hammy? And no billowy, Brillo-y bush, alas. How should she have one when she does not even need to shave her legs? This last a convenience of sorts.

(75-76)

Not too surprisingly, Mona's adolescent angst takes the form of anxiety about her body, but...