The Woman Warrior, By Maxine Hong Kingston

Identity crises are common problems for immigrants coming into any country. Deciding whether to stay true to their roots or to assimilate to a new culture puts pressure on many immigrants and their families. Both Jake and Babbitt, from Hester Street and Babbitt respectively, define what means to be American on superficial terms, even though they both believe that being an American does not merely stem from racial identity. They both become obsessed with being as seen as Americans through their social status, physical appearance, the pursuit of wealth, and freedom. While both Jake and Babbitt try to assimilate to American culture, only Babbitt truly succeeds in achieving this goal.

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston makes her narration compelling and relatable to the audience through her unique style of storytelling. The ever-present changes in perspective lead one to see how each event eventually affects Kingston. Her comparison of her life to that of Fa Mu Lan brings out the difficulties in her living in America while her mother had grown up in China. This hero myth allows her to connect to those values that Brave Orchid holds which make her so hard on her daughter. The telling of Brave orchid’s talk-stories in first person makes their events more relatable to Kingston, which makes the 4th chapter’s telling in the third person all the more jarring and thought-provoking. All in all, Kingston’s writing style in this novel serves to make it evoke a powerful sense of relatability and understanding of her plight.

The United States has been a host to a wide diaspora of people. Immigrants have had to transition from their familiar land to a new-fashioned foreign land that they must consider home. They bring with them the essence of their initial homeland such as customs, traditions and beliefs that inadvertently change the dynamics of culture within the United States. As a result the United States is an extremely culturally diverse nation. The continual changes or accretions that Americans encounter have always been a controversial topic depending on the experiences of individuals and communities that have immigrant populations. This essay will critically explore

The term immigrant is defined as “a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence” (“Immigrant”). In her autobiography, Barefoot Heart, Elva Trevino Hart speaks of her immigrant ways and how she fought to become the Mexican-American writer she is today. She speaks about the working of land, the migrant camps, plus the existence she had to deal with in both the Mexican and American worlds. Hart tells the story of her family and the trials they went through along with her physical detachment and sense of alienation at home and in the American (Anglo) society. The loneliness and deprivation was the desire that drove Hart to defy the odds and acquire the unattainable sense of belonging into American

Through interviewing my roommate Linda Wang, I have gotten the opportunity of hearing a first-hand account of what it is like being a young immigrant living in the United States. At the age of eight, Linda, along with her father, mother, and aunt, emigrated to America. Linda’s family currently resides in Bayside, Queens and she is a student-athlete on the St. John’s women’s golf team. Linda was kind enough to share her immigration story with me so that I may use it as a manifestation of what life as an immigrant, and the immigration process itself, entails.

In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and

In “The Right Road to America?,” Amy Chua informs her audience about the possibility of America’s national identity becoming lost due to the influence of immigrants. Chua’s defines her thesis by stating “Around the world, nations face violence and instability as a result of their increasing pluralism and diversity,” (336). The key points of the text includes Chua explaining why America and other nations could lose their core identities, how the United States could become unglued from its true meaning, and how citizens can fix this imminent problem. The information in this text is significant, especially in today’s society. With all of the issues about immigration coinciding with our current president, this text relates to current subjects

Throughout the novel The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, the past is incorporated into the present through talk-stories combined into each chapter. Kingston uses talk-stories, to examine the intermingling of Chinese myths and lived experiences. These stories influence the life of the narrator as the past is constantly spoken about from the time she is young until the novel ends and she becomes an adult. Kingston incorporates two cultures. She is not a direct recipient of Chinese culture, but she has her own sense of talk-story, that she learns from her mother, which tells the old Chinese stories with a sense of myth, in a new American way. This is a way of weaving two cultures together, bringing the Chinese past into her present American life.

The theme of “voiceless woman” throughout the book “the woman warrior” is of great importance. Maxine Kingston narrates several stories in which gives clear examples on how woman in her family are diminished and silenced by Chinese culture. The author not only provides a voice for herself but also for other women in her family and in her community that did not had the opportunity to speak out and tell their stories.

Higher expectations by first-generation immigrant parents also involve as intergenerational conflict in forming the American identity. In the article “Intergenerational

Maxine Hong Kingston's autobiography, The Woman Warrior, features a young Chinese-American constantly searching for "an unusual bird" that would serve as her impeccable guide on her quest for individuality (49). Instead of the flawless guide she seeks, Kingston develops under the influence of other teachers who either seem more fallible or less realistic. Dependent upon their guidance, she grows under the influence of American and Chinese schools and the role models of Brave Orchid, Fa Mu Lan, and Moon Orchid. Her education by these counselors consequently causes her to abandon her search for an escort, the bird to be found somewhere in the measureless sky,

The Story “Woman Warrior” written by Maxine Hong Kingston in 1975, is a great representation of what woman are characterized as in regards to being submissive or rebellious in their society, and how, even though they are harshly treated, the women fight back instead of letting themselves be subjugated, it exemplifies the hardships women face in their lives. In The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Author Maxine Hong Kingston brings to the table a bunch of allegorical and life stories that bring upon the hardships in which she, herself, must deal with the sexist ideology and prejudice growing up young Chinese American girl. Throughout her life she was called such racist and stereotypical names such as “gook” and is repeatedly told such chauvinist Chinese sayings like “girls are maggots in the rice” by her own flesh and blood; her parents. Maxine Hong Kingston feels isolated from modern American culture and from the patriarchal Chinese culture.

A ghost is “a disembodied soul,” according to the definition found within Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. However, in the novel The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, the term ghost adopts a meaning that holds a much greater depth. All throughout the text, the word “ghost” reoccurs in a metaphorical sense that binds together the overlying theme of culture disconnect between the generations of the Chinese-Americans. Kingston equips figurative usage of ghosts in order to establish a setting in which there is an evident cultural gap between those described as ghosts, and those who live and breathe in a traditional Chinese sense.

For centuries, people faced prejudice and struggle to live the “American Dream”. Thousands of people come to the U.S. to live a better life for their family. Instead they face racial seclusion, struggle to survive, and consequences of American’s fear. In the memoir, The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, a girl who discloses stories about Chinese myths, families, and events in the U.S. that has shaped her identity. In the historical fiction novel, When the Emperor was Divine, by Julie Otsuka, is about a Japanese American family sent to an internment camp in Utah during WWII written in children’s lens. In both novels, silence is viewed as gender and ethnical oppression.

In Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior”, in chapter 2 “White Tigers” Kingston says that Chinese immigrants say things such as “better to raise geese than girls”. They also say “Chinese executed women who disguised themselves as soldiers or students, no matter how bravely they fought or how high they scored on the examinations”. I argue that in doing this, the texts suggest shockingly, that Chinese immigrants continue to treat woman as if they are worthless, which is why Maxine Hong Kingston compares herself to Mulan. She just wants to honor her family and feel accepted.