American Born Chinese Assimilation

Four Chinese mothers have migrated to America. Each hope for their daughter’s success and pray that they will not experience the hardships faced in China. One mother, Suyuan, imparts her knowledge on her daughter through stories. The American culture influences her daughter, Jing Mei, to such a degree that it is hard for Jing Mei to understand her mother's culture and life lessons. Yet it is not until Jing Mei realizes that the key to understanding who her

Chinese Americans have arrived to the United States through three waves of immigration. The journey of immigrating to the United States consisted of many obstacles and hardships. Chinese Americans have been in this country for centuries, and still remain one of the smallest minority minorities. To this day, they are still perceived as foreigners in the eyes of other Americans, and have been victimized for their successes. To gain a deeper understanding of Chinese immigration, we must look at the Chinese American experience of immigrant jobs, exclusion and discrimination, and the model minority stereotype.

Many new arrivals still struggle to survive and often Chinese Americans still encounter suspicion and hostility. Chinese Americans have achieved great success and now, like so many others, they are stitching together a new American identity. As Michelle Ling, a young Chinese American, tells Bill Moyers in Program 3, “I get to compose my life one piece at a time, however I feel like it. Not to say that it’s not difficult and that there isn’t challenge all the time, but more than material wealth, you get to choose what you are, who you are.” (www.pbs.org)

In the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang, Jin, an American Chinese, struggles to fit in with society and his environment. Throughout the novel, Jin struggles with being himself in society and ultimately conforms to society's expectations. In the beginning of the novel, Jin learns that he is able to transform to become anything he wants. In the middle of the novel, Jin struggles to fit in with society and has trouble in the way he views himself. He changes himself in order to fit in.

Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the early 20th century, many Chinese families struggled to gain social, economic, and educational stature in both China and the United States. In the book, A Transnational History of a Chinese Family, by Haiming Liu, we learn about the Chang family rooted in Kaiping County, China, who unlike many typical Chinese families’ exemplified hard-work and strong cultural values allowing them to pursue an exceptional Chinese-American lifestyle. Even with immigration laws preventing Chinese laborers and citizens to enter unless maintaining merchant status, Yitang and Sam Chang managed to sponsor approximately 40 relatives to the states with their businesses in herbalist

The tale “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luch Wang depicts the story of three characters, Monkey, Jin, and Danny. They all have the problem of fitting into their new environments. Jin Wang has to deal with Asian stereotypes. Danny has to deal with embarrassment of his cousin. Lastly, Monkey has to deal with the fact that there is no position for him in the heavenly ranks. However, over time, these characters have to come together to fit in. Yet the question remains: what exactly about fitting in is the problem? Although Jin Wang takes the form of Danny to reject his Chinese roots, the embarrassment of Chin-Knee shows he cannot hide behind a false American identity, thereby delineating that race is the source of his problem.

The two characters from both passages feel animus towards their own society. Lin is so resolved to eradicate her Chinese identity that just associating with her own kind causes her to be irritated and socially isolated from them.

Fae Myenne Ng is a contemporary Chinese-American author who is known for her first written novel, Bone. Her debut novel was published in 1993 and the story is told through the eyes of the main character, Leila Leong. Leila tells the story of her family’s history and the events that unfold following the suicide of her sister. As Leila’s story progresses, themes of identity and family life are revealed. Leila and her two sisters border the line between American and Chinese, two distinct cultures that belong to very different worlds. The sisters deal with the struggles of assimilation as they grow up in the seclusive community of Chinatown only to live in an American world. The family life of the Leong

From Chinatown to Monterey Park, Asian Americans across the boundaries of Los Angeles are flourishing from bustling inner cities to middle class suburbia. The suburban life style was originally created by white Americans for white Americans however in today’s suburban cities and towns there seems to be a substantial group of Asians and Asian Americans thriving in these once predominately white areas(Li 1993, 318). The development of Asians and Asian Americans in the suburbs occurred through the following three ways, first is the development of Chinatown and how it became the Mecca for immigrants and the second is Asian American assimilation into American society. The last reason is the gentrification of towns such as Chinatown, and Little Tokyo.

When Loung starts her first day of school, she is excited because she had spent most of her summer watching T.V and learning new words every day. She hopes that it would be enough to help her make some new friends. She imagines herself with friends that have blonde and brown hair. “I just know that if I'm friends with them, I’ll be normal and happy too!” (Ung 59) Loung doesn't want Asian friends, she believes that if all her friends were Asian she will be seen as someone who is an outcast and is not open to being friends with any other race. Loung sees Caucasian as the dominant race in America and if she can make friends with them, she can blend in with the common people of America.Heading to school with the typical pink dress and barbie backpack that she has seen the other neighborhood girls wearing, Loung enters her classroom with an optimistic mindset, but that all comes to a complete halt when she sees the frowns and glares of her classmates. When her teacher begins to tell the class to open up their notebooks and journal what they did for the summer Loung is very confused because these words were not said on the T.V. In order not to avoid looking like a fool she copies the little girl next to her. Loung copied the girl next to her because this moment was the pivotal moment she could show her teachers and classmates that she was just as American as them. Once the teacher realized that Loung

People only focuses on where they are but forgets where they came from. In “The Trip Back”, Robert Olen Butler criticizes self and family importance on cultural perspective through the story of Khánh, a Vietnamese man living in Louisiana, who is on a way back of picking up his wife’s grandfather. Butler sets cultural difference viewpoint as the crucial aspect of the story through Khánh’s behavior.

     The focus of our group project is on Chinese Americans. We studied various aspects of their lives and the preservation of their culture in America. The Chinese American population is continually growing. In fact, in 1990, they were the largest group of Asians in the United States (Min 58). But living in America and adjusting to a new way of life is not easy. Many Chinese Americans have faced and continue to face much conflict between their Chinese and American identities. But many times, as they adapt to this new life, they are also able to preserve their Chinese culture and identity through various ways. We studied these things through the viewing of a movie called Joy Luck Club,

This book displayed many intercultural misunderstandings and issues that happened to be the focal point of the entire storyline. In my eyes, there were three major intercultural misunderstandings that really created the twists and turns within the storyline. The first intercultural misunderstanding was the difference in meaning for the condition known as, epilepsy. The Hmong culture believes that Lia's condition was not a disease or medical condition of any kind. Instead, they believe that a specific spirit had captured Lia’s soul

Marilyn Chin’s “How I Got That Name,” is a poem about a Chinese-American immgirant’s identity. At the centre of the poem, there’s a conflict between American, and the Chinese culture when the Chinese woman experiences cultural shock. In the opening part of the poem, she touches on how she got her American name- Marilyn “ when my father the paperson in the late 1950s obsessed with a bombshell blonde transliterated “Mei Ling” to “Marilyn.” (lines 9-12) Next, she describes how despite having an American name, [model minoriy] is a tease (42). Although Chin’s the author, she’s not the one in the poem, infact she’s narrating through another Chines-American woman. She later makes her point of losing the identity by comparing

In the personal essay “My Mothers Tongue” (1990), Amy Tan, widely known author explains her insights on language and culture identity using details and memories from her own life experiences. Tan conceals that the language in which her mother used with her “was the language that helped shape the way [she] saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world” (1208) and in the process it made her who she is today as an author. Tan illuminates the euro centricity of the Master Narrative by retelling stories of her mother being treated poorly because of her “broken” or “limited” English. She recalls many past experiences where her mother suffered from bad service and treatment from restaurants, stockbrokers, and even hospitals. Using examples from her personal life Tan gets her point across about language and culture characteristics in order to show how Chinese culture is affected by the master narrative and also encourages others to include a variety of cultures in order to overcome bias opinions. Tan’s apparent audience can be ranged from the child of an immigrant to a doctor and offers an authentic and rich portrayal of Chinese history through her conflicting experience of her Chinese and American cultures.