In search of a home(land): Looi Yook Tho and questions of identity in postcolonial Malaysia

Combining contextualization with textual analysis and theoretical engagement, this article examines how the work of Looi Yook Tho, an important voice in postcolonial Chinese Malaysian poetry, addresses questions of identity. The article argues that four recurring and interlinked concerns emerge in Looi’s poetry. First, his descriptions of the diasporic experience of Chinese pioneers in Malaya, through which their sense of ethnic identity was formed, demonstrate what is termed a ‘localized orientation’ in his writing. Second, by evoking traumatic memories, including of the 13 May Incident and of Operasi Lalang, Looi’s poems speculate on the national identity of Chinese Malaysians, and critique the country’s institutionalized racism and ethnolinguistic politics, though they lack critical thinking on the subject of colonialism. Third, when conveying nostalgia for his homeland, Looi delineates the making of self-identity and questions the ideology of developmentalism. Last, on the basis of an ethics of ‘togetherness-in-difference’, Looi seeks to re-imagine a national identity in which all Malaysians work together to confront the same social crises. Running through all these themes, with their critiques of capitalism and racism, is Looi’s search for a home(land)