The Search for Identity in Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club Essay -- Joy Lu

The Search for Identity in The Joy passel Club When Chinese immigrants enter the United States of America, it is straightforward from the start that they are in a world far dissimilar than their homeland. Face to face with a dominant culture that often measure acts and thinks in ways contrary to their previous lives, immigrants are on a difficult path of attempting to become an American. Chinese immigrants find themselves often caught betwixt two worlds the old world of structured, traditional and didactic China and the immature world of mobile, young and prosperous America. They nostalgically look back at China longing for a simpler life but look at the United States as a land of opportunity and freedom that they did non know in China. For this is why they came to America in the first place, to endure for their children and themselves what they could not in China. To do this, of course, they are faced with the challenge of assimilating. information the language, acquirin g education, owning property, etc. are all ways to seize the American Dream. However this poses a problem for the Chinese immigrant for, in the process of assimilation, they fall behind some of their Chinese culture. This especially rings true for the children of Chinese immigrants the second-generation Chinese Americans. Second-generation Chinese Americans are faced with a special challenge. Their parents have endured the bark to come to this coun... ... October 19%. 256,257. Shear, Walter. Generational Differences and the Diaspora. Critigue Spring 1993 193-199. Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. time of origin Contemporaries. New York A Division of Random House, Inc., 199 1. Tsai, Shan-Shan Henry. The Chinese Experience in America. Bloomington and Indianapolis Indiana University Press, 1986. Xu, Ben. Memory and the Ethnic Self. Reading Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club.Meleus. Spring 1994 3 -16. Yung, Judy. Chinese Women in America A lifelike History. Seattle and London University of Wash ington Press, 1989. (several found in Gale Literary Database t)v-(http//www.galenet.com/servlet/GLD/hits?c...n=10&1=d&NA=Amy+Tan=&The+Joy+-Luck+Club)