Unbinding the feet: The physical and symbolic representation of bound feet in Chinese-American literature (Maxine Hong Kingston)

In The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston declares, "Even now China wraps double binds around my feet" (48). Traditional Chinese society implemented bound feet to keep a female's sexuality and identity contained. A popular saying demonstrates this, "Why must the foot be bound? To prevent barbarous running around" (Levy 41). A woman's bound feet signalled more than sexual and social oppression; her crippled feet literally prevented her from "wandering" outside her given sphere. She shared a similar fate to her Victorian female counterpart of the nineteenth and early twentieth century; both were told their place was by the "hearth" or in the home.; In addition to Kingston other twentieth century Chinese-American writers employ this image of Chinese woman's bound feet. The woman's bound feet is inextricably tied to Chinese patriarchal culture and its tenets, in particular, society as "communal" or familism-based. This differs sharply from the "individualistic" nature of American society. These authors all demonstrate this struggle the Chinese individual undergoes in America between their Chinese culture--placing the community and family above the individual--i.e. familism--and the American culture--where the individual reigns supreme. How then does the Chinese-American woman's identity change and evolve once she reaches America, and how does this compare with her original position and role in China--specifically her roles as wife and mother? These issues seem especially crucial during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when discriminatory laws against Chinese immigrants in the U.S. reach their peak. Due to social and economic conditions in the U.S. the Chinese-American woman achieves a freedom and power unknown in her native China--symbolized by the symbolic, and often literal, "unbinding" of her feet. The Chinese immigrant male's role as husband and father changes in response to both the evolution of the Chinese female and also the racism of his new majority: White America. Kingston's opening chapter in China Men metaphorically depicts the emasculation of the China male upon his arrival in the U.S. Ironically, the original symbol of Chinese patriarchal oppression i.e. bound feet now switches genders from the China female to the male.