As she is able to separate, she looks back at her culture fondly rather than with anger. The last talk-story Kingston adds to her memoir is a collaboration of China and America, old and new. She leads into the story with, “The beginning is hers her mother’s, the ending mine Kingston” (206). Kingston acknowledges that while she may still be strongly influenced by her mother and her Chinese culture, she is in the process of breaking away to create a personal identity. This is the first time that Kingston explicitly tells which additions to the story are her own.
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 Alice’s case, her characteristics and values have been drastically influenced by what her family has been through in the past. An example of the influence of past lives on the behaviors of family members is the relationship between Alice’s mother and her grandmother. There is great conflict between the two of them during Alice’s childhood because her grandmother has such high expectations of Alice’s mother that she finds difficult to fulfill. Alice’s grandmother is an old fashioned Chinese woman, who believes that the wife of the house must bring honor to her family by perfecting all domestic duties. Juggling four children, cooking, cleaning and adjusting to a new society puts pressure on Alice’s mother.
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. Also, she examines the rise of Christianity, the YWCA, The New Life Association, Chinese women’s role in the war, and support within Chinese communities in America. Yung states “the groundwork laid by our foremothers for a better life at home, in the workplace and in the larger society has not been lost on today’s generation of Chinese American women (Yung, 292). The title “Unbound Feet” is a perfect representation of Yung’s research on immigration and settling in The States. It represents the bound feet that Chinese women of high class had when arriving in America, to “ensure that women did not ‘wander’ too far outside the household gate” (Yung, 19).
Introduction: - Joan Didion’s Play it as it Lays, Junot Diaz’ Drown, and Maxine Hong Kingstons’ The Woman Warrior all demonstrate different intersections of race, class and gender. Each novel provides a unique perspective of growing up in American society. In Play it as it Lays, Didon dictates a story of Maria Wyeth, a Caucasian wealthy actress, struggling with depression. Contrastly, Diaz’ introduces Junior, a Domincan male, who spent his childhood living in a third world country, and struggles with poverty even after moving to the States. Finally, Kingston shares her hardships of adjusting into the role of a Chinese-American woman in her memoir, The Woman Warrior.
In Edith Eaton read she writes about how Pan, a Chinese girl, born in a foreign society all her life still manages to respect her native culture and puts it before anything or anyone. Eaton shows that no matter how much you value a person, your religion or culture will always mean more to a person since it defines who you are as a person. The same applies to the short story written by Pauline Johnson “The Red girls’ Reasoning”. In this narrative Johnson tells a story about a young Indian girl, Christie, who is married to a White man named Charlie. 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.
Name: Instructor: Course: Date: “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan The article “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is mainly about the author’s thoughts and judgments on broken English in comparison to Standard English. Tan is an American writer who was born in China and is torn between two different worlds: the American society and the Chinese society, which have very diverse societal behaviors and values (Tan 142-146). Tan describes how she relates with her mother who, according to her, speaks broken English. She talks about the limitations of her mother’s English including its advantages and disadvantages. This paper provides a summary of the article, including its major themes.
Red Azalea was published in 1994. Something that affects the book historically is that the China Cultural Revolution was mentioned in the book, because she had to go through the hardships of living during that period of time. 4.) Since this is a memoir of Anchee Min’s life growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, I don’t think there’s much bias in the book, because she lived through it. It reminds me of Diary of Anne Frank.
The sheer difference between Winterbourne and Daisy is evident in their opposing forms of speech; Daisy’s common vernacular, words like “ain’t,” verses Winterbourne’s more cultured phraseology. And while their dialogue is the most obvious sign of their differences there are other, subtler markers of the dissimilarity in their breeding. “She is a young lady, who has an intimacy with her mamma’s courier!” (20); Daisy is unaware that such a relationship is unseemly because, “they’ve never seen a man with such good manners, such fine clothes, so like a gentleman…” (20). This relationship with her servant shows how lost and unaware of customs she is. Daisy also, “tears about alone with her unmistakably low foreigners” (40) which shows how little taste and poise she has, she lacks the most basic ability to choose suitable companions.
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