Unbound Feet The immigration of Chinese women was one of the most overlooked and understudied significant event in women’s history, until now. Their rise from being considered slaves, to gaining respect and credibility, is one of the most influential for women’s equality across America. In Unbound Feet, Judy Yung examines the hardships and rise of Chinese women as they immigrate to America to fulfill their dreams, yet are bound by discrimination and bind together to rise above racism and sexism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yung examines the immigration and rise of the culture in five decades. Yung asks herself “What sociohistorical forces were at play that can explain social change for Chinese American women in the first half of the twentieth century?” (Yung, 5) The book tells of their oppression in America through prostitution, gender roles, anti-Chinese immigration laws, and class discrimination.
The joy luck club by Amy Tan Analysis of the book The bond between a mother and daughter is very strong. It goes deeper than words can reach and continues beyond the grave. During life, however, it may not be at all comfortable; there may be battles and misunderstandings, impatience and anger. And if your mother was born in pre-Revolutionary China, and you were born in San Francisco in 1950, a child of two differing cultures, how do you explain your problems to her? How will she understand your feelings?
In the beginning of “The struggle to be an All American girl”, Elizabeth Wong started out with describing Chinese school in her living town and wrote about her and her brother’s experience of changing their culture from Chinese to American since they were children. They went to the Chinese school because her mother pretention to keep their cultural estate even though they hated it. At the school, they learned not only Chinese but politeness as well. The school in her memory smelled like “mothballs or dirty closet”, and the principal was look like a “maniacal child killer”. She also described her learning Chinese like the most boring thing in the word by using some words as: “kowtow”, “chant”, “sing-san-ho” and ideographs letters.
The Joy Luck Club Assignment The film the Joy Luck Club was an excellent account of four different accounts of Asian American women and their grown up assimilated daughters. It dealt with the marked discrepancy in the story of the rough relationships of first generation Asian American mothers and the daughters’ complete assimilation. It was interesting viewing the mothers’ adherence to their customs and beliefs clashing with their daughters’ acceptance of the American lifestyle. In addition, the stereotypes that were perpetuated by the movie were intense, mainly of Asian men and women. By showing the beliefs and customs of the Chinese still done here in America, the film makes a massive effort to reinforce negative stereotypes such of Asians as sexist, poverty-ridden, cruel, and strange, exotic, and
written by Gish Jen demonstrated a double consciousness. Through her racial lens she detects the differences between the Chinese, the Irish, and the White Americans; she is always racially conscious and suspicious. When her Shea in-laws continuously comment on her granddaughter Sophie’s skin color she makes a remark implying more racial breeding thus ceasing conversation and invoking an apology. Further in the text Chinese grandmother says, “Nothing the matter with Sophie’s outside, that’s the truth. It is inside that she is like not any Chinese girl I ever see.” Her statement gives insight on how the granddaughter may pass through the veil with her exterior as Chinese but her interior passes for American, a dual identities within one person.
In this narrative the readers see that Charlie considers his culture and nationality much more superior to his wife’s but Christie values both the cultures equally because they represent the two individuals. Both of the readings content combined helps to understand how ones nationality strongly fits under their individuality. In Edith Eaton’s piece called “Its Wavering Image” she uses this short narrative to project her real life experience as a half Chinese and half British girl growing up in a Western society and her search to finding her true identity. In this story a young girl named Pan, a half white and half Chinese girl, whose mother had died and so she lived
The poem begins with the perspective of the sister in China as she describes the tradition of her people and the adaptations they have made. After some brief background into the Chinese culture, Song moves to focus on the relationship between the speaker and her sister. “And the daughters were grateful: They never left home. To move freely was a luxury stolen from them at birth” (Song); Song uses these lines to describe the realities that come with living in China and the idea that one may never actually leave to discover America. In the first part of the poem Song conveys that the life lived in China is not a glorious one.
Chinatowns were formed for many of the same reasons as other areas of large cities like the Irish areas in Boston and the little Italy section of North Beach. The immigrants were not accepted readily by Americans and needed a place to stay together with others who shared the same beliefs and traditions; it is there the story begins. Jade Snow Wong is the fifth Chinese Daughter in the Wong’s family. In the first act of the book, she briefly describes what her childhood was like growing up in the Chinatown of California in the early 1900s. She vividly details out the importance of each holiday and each traditions she has to follow as a child growing up in a Chinese family, the Chinese traditions were rather strict than the recent modern generations such as mine.
Neither is shown to be without flaw, in a quite true-to-life scenario. Major common themes in this story are the generational differences among a family of immigrants as well as mother-daughter relationships, focusing specifically on the relationship between Jing-mei and her mother. 'Two Kinds' is a great example of this differential conflict. "Why don't you like me the way I am?" I cried.
In “Who’s Irish” the traditional roles, such as child, parent, grandparent, and wife are modified to reflect society’s modern, changing dynamic, but tensions associated with cultural/racial discrimination, generational differences, and women’s changing roles come to the surface. Cultural/racial discrimination is seen both obviously and subtly in this short story. The story is narrated by an unnamed older Chinese woman, who emigrated from China many years before the story takes place. She has brought many of her cultural beliefs with her and looks down upon some of the cultural norms that are present in American society. Her daughter, Nattie, marries into an Irish-American family, the Shea’s.