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In this article constituted of excerpts from Writing Diaspora (1993), postcolonial theorist Rey Chow offers a sharp critique of the interests pursued by academic research when it invests the figures of the subalterns and specifically that of the “native” from the non-Western world. Following Said’s work on Orientalism, Rey Chow ironically portrays the “Maoist” scholar as one who seeks salvation in the exoticized Orient (or indigenous). Conversely, she calls for recognition of the power of the native’s silence, a refusal to speak that can make stutter the order of discourse, provided one lends an attentive ear.