Paper Menagerie Dichotomy

Jin Wang is embarrassed to even be apart of his family by the way he acts and how he represents their culture. He now can see how hard it is to fit in.

Through the personal stories of his hair, love life, and behavior, Liu is able to show the effects of his assimilation. The second section deals with Liu’s struggles to conform to white stereotypes as an Asian American. With his personal anecdotes, he establishes himself as a more credible source to speak on the subject of assimilation. The second section uses narration to provide evidence about Liu’s definition of assimilation.

Liu, like any other kid wanted to be cool. He shares that one major part of being cool, was to have the cool hairstyle. For most of his childhood, Liu sported a bowl cut. The new style in his school however was hair parted down the middle and tapered on the ends. With Liu’s Asian genes it was nearly impossible to accomplish this style. After a couple years of trying various different hair styles that did not suffice as cool, he finally became content with having a crew-cut. Liu also thought that because he was Asian, he had less of a chance to get girls. Liu insists that it was the “sole obstacle” to his “advancement” (Liu 20). His response to this was to do more school activities such as write for the school newspaper and join the school newspaper. Although he wanted to disconcert stereotypes, Liu states that this made him seem like a typical “Asian overachiever” (Liu 21). Another concern Liu had from his Chinese heritage was that he had never been taught American manners. When he went to a friend’s house to sleep over, he never said “thank you” for it. When he had dinner at a friend’s house he ate differently than the others. As he began to change the way he acted and talked at friend’s houses he began to realize that he was getting further and further away from his Asian heritage.

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.

THESIS - When evaluating Arnold “Junior” Spirit from Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Jin Wang from Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, similarities radiate in both characters as their disparity in race deem the two of them as outcasts in the entirety of society. In addition to their lack of social interactions, their uniformity in their impulsive decisions cost them each a dear friend. Although Junior and Jin are quite similar, they share differences in the way Junior tries bettering himself by fitting into both his Indian and Reardan culture whereas Jin changes himself in every possible way to become Americanized.

The Home Depot knows that they must stay on top of technology and management must be able to organize this function in a way that surpasses the competition, pleases the customers, and keep the employees satisfied.

The Japanese and their rabid ethnocentrism have their effect on the narrator’s family. The family is generally happy and well structured. The narrator lives with his mother, father, little sister and grandfather. As mentioned before, the narrator’s family pressures him to be better than the Japanese students. Upon returning home after being beaten, the men of the house invite him to eat with them and drink wine. This is a strong scene that is filled with the proudness of a parent for their son. Simply standing up to a

He finds out that there are little or no words to their contributions. At the end of the story, when he heard that his history teacher say something wrong about Chinese history, Donald stopped him. Chin turn Donald to act like a hero at the end. Furthermore, Donald’s father also play an important role in helping his son to be a “real man.” Chin creates a heroic image of father who represents all Chinese Americans. When his father realized he acts like a weak person, he would emphasizes, “You walk like a sad softie...You look like you want everyone to beat you up” (Chin 3). His father always remind him to become a hero. Chin put his father into a heroic image because he wants to put Chinese American in the central position of the story, to emphasizes that Chinese are not coward. He uses the history of railroad building to points out that Chinese are brave and strong, as they takes up many dangerous jobs that the whites scared to take. In the novel, Chin also wants to claims that a name is just an artificial object, just like the history. Since the history has been written by different person, it might be

Lee cannot remember his Chinese language which further solidifies the death of his original culture, Not only was the theme of death revealed through culture but physically when Lee’s mother died. However, death led to the strong family connection between Lee and his father.

Amy Tan’s essay “Fish Cheeks” is a story about a teenage girl who is mortified at her own culture. However, she wants to fit with American society. Tan falls in love with a white American boy Robert, who was a minister’s son. Her parents decided to invite Robert and his family over for Christmas dinner. Tan was trying to fit in American culture because she did not want to look different. However, she wonders, “What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas… our noisy Chinese relatives?” (Tan 74). By repeating the word “Chinese” with negative words in front of it, like “shabby,” and “noisy,” Tan reveals her low level of pride in her heritage. She thinks her family is louder than they should be, that her customs are less valuable than those of the guests. Christmas Eve dinner for Tan was outlandish. In fact, Tan feels frustrated because of her Chinese culture: licked chopstick and digging into plates, eating cheeks and eye of fish, and belching loudly after finishing the dinner, she reacts by wanting “to disappear” (Tan 75). After the dinner, Tan’s mother said to her, “You want to be the same as American girls on the outside.” Also, she handed her an early gift, a miniskirt in beige tweed and said to her, “But inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame” (Tan 75). Later, Tan realized that being an outsider is not a source of shame, but of pride. Also, Tan explains that she came to accept her

Truck driver, Jack Burton, arrives in Chinatown, San Francisco and during the unloading of his semitruck plays a game of cards of with his friend Wang Chi. Wang loses but cannot pay Jack at the time because he needed to pick up his fiancée, Miao Yin at the airport. Jack did not want to wait around for his money, so he drove Wang to the airport so that he could get paid back faster. However, when they saw Miao she was kidnapped by members of a Chinese gang, The Lords of Death, and Jack and Wang chase them from the airport in Jack’s cab through the alleys of Chinatown.

A Chinese man who lives in Jamaica will result in many to question his identity and ridicule him. This second identity that Hall mentions, made clear as to why it was necessary for Lowe to progress throughout his life creating different identities. He uses his method of passing as a means of survival. However, this does create a conflict and affects Lowes position in the world. Being Chinese, a merchant and a male who now transgresses to become a female has impacted and shifted his sexuality. Because of this, it impacted his hierarchy and therefore, affected his overall class.

He sends him back home to marry a friend's daughter, bring her back, take a good job and start a family. Ben Loy is one of the first Chinese men in New York to marry and bring his bride back to America. The old men, most of whom have their wives in China are thrilled. They see Ben's marriage as a new beginning for their aging hamlet. All these pressures, unfortunately, make the young man impotent. It is interesting that the movie is full of images and situations in which Chinese and American cultures confront one another. For instance, during the arranged courtship in China, the couple's first moment alone on screen is against the backdrop of an open-air projection of an American film. When the couple is on vacation in Washington to try and escape the pressures of community and finally make love, the familiar American landmarks are overlaid with Chinese music. The very real human problems - family, marriage, impotence, work - are shown to be indistinguishable from crises over identity; Ben Loy's impotence, his failure to continue the line is a sign of his inability to unite Chinese and American, public expectation and private desires.

Immigration brings uncertainty, tensions between the past and present, and alterations in identity due to acculturation as shown through Leon and other characters in Bone. In the psychological study, “The Meaning of ‘Being Chinese’ and ‘Being American’: Variation among Chinese American Young Adults,” the correlation between the Chinese immigrating to the United States abridging Chinese and American cultures varied based on their age of immigration and the duration of their time in the United States, demonstrating that immigration provides a multifaceted experience for each individual. Chinese immigrants who immigrated over the age of twelve, like Mah and Leon, present an anchored identity as Chinese, but have to adapt through consciously engaging in American culture to survive. Leon distances himself from his frustrations of living in America by going out to sea, evading Chinatown- a reminder of Ona’s death-, and by distracting himself in project inventions without any intentions of completing them. Then, Mah immerses herself in work and relationships, including her affair with Tommie Ham and her over involvement in her daughters’ lives. Chinese immigrants who immigrated under the age of twelve, like Leila, are placed in the position of mediating between Chinese and American cultures; they experience less certainty on which culture to identify with and often have to consciously act to become a part of either. In her conversation with Nina, Leila reflects on how Nina’s tour

Kids with immigrant parents have to live in between different cultures, backgrounds, expectations, stereotypes, and identity. Youths of immigrant parents get affected by different cultures. These kids have to fight day by day between different cultures. In the article, “The Good Daughter,” by Caroline Hwang, she talks about her American cultural, identity, and her ethnicity of having Korean parents. Her sense of identity was falling apart when she wasn't able to pronounce her last name and her parents never corrected her. Caroline was living in “paradoxes” because her parents “didn't want her Korean, but they don't want her fully American, either” (Hwang 10). She was living in a world of pressure and two dissimilar worlds. Yet, in the essay,