many, many years, if you think back the first writer who was read in terms of asian american was maxine kingston. i read her in high school and was greatly affected by reading about the woman warrior. before her there were few. there were some but didn't make that economic splash. they were never read in a large way. maxine was the first one we read her in school we knew of her. she was not out there like anny tan was when she wrote the joy luck club. so much of it is timing. it meant all the history and the voices before then had been silent. my generation of writers came in and we heard stories of women and men and the family of a different generation. a lot of us had been writing about that because they were silenced for so long. i am involved with the book prize. it's a pacific rim book prize in which books come from asia and all over the pacific rim. in the last 11 years it's been a prize we read so many books that have come from voices of new writers. i'm always amazed and they are writing different storers i wrote when i started. all the people have come through now. if you look at the li