The Big Aiiieeeee!

``Aiiieeeee!'' is the angry cry of Asian Americans, ``long ignored and forcibly excluded from creative participation in American culture.'' In their incendiary introduction, the editors of this absorbing collection condemn the ``white racist imagination'' that has permeated such popular Asian American works as Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club . The writings themselves--remarkably diverse, ranging from haiku to autobiography--present a subtler, often poignant picture of Chinese and Japanese immigrants and their American-born childrenpk striving to adjust to an unwelcoming new culture. The best-known piece is an excerpt from Louis Chu's novel Eat a Bowl of Tea ; other works are more obscure but no less vivid. In the short story ``Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian,'' Sui Sin Far, one of several eloquent women writers included, describes a young girl's struggle for identity in late 19th-century America. ``Why did God make us to be hooted and stared at? Papa is English, Mamma2 ``m''s in text is Chinese. Why couldn't we have been either one thing or the other?'' The editors' previous collection was Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers. (July)