American American Literature Studies

Through a large number of Chinese American writers’ great efforts, Chinese American literature has accomplished great achievements. The existence of the Chinese American writer itself is a kind of cross-cultural communication, Mestizo identity has endowed them with a unique perspective and keen sense of cultural smell. When these advantages combined with the authors’ own experiences and cultural awareness, a strong cultural consciousness is generated. Chinese American writers put their thinking which are relevant to cultural differences, cultural conflict, cultural identity choice and cultural adaptation into their works, creating a unique ethnic sensibility.This paper selects some representative writers to study, for example. Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan and Gish Jen, etc. Through analyzing these writers and their works, we will explore their attitudes towards Chinese traditional culture and discuss their cultural awareness and cultural identity selection, through which we come to know how to read Chinese American literature. More significantly, Chinese American literature can teach us how to deal with the cultural differences, how to explore cultural identity and how to fight for the rights of speech. These important experiences are valuable achievements which turn out to be a result from the Chinese American’s struggle for more than half a century. These remain to be extremely informative for the second language learners to deal with the multiculturalism as well as the real value of researching Chinese American literature.