Outsiders In The Melting Pot

Chinese American literature is worth studying for several reasons:to start with, we can understand Chinese American history and culture better through the study of Chinese American literature; moreover, we can acquaint ourselves with Chinese Americans' experiences. Not only does literature as an important mean contribute to understanding a period of history or culture, but it also adds vivid picture and prolific emotion to what happened in the past. From the earliest Chinese immigrants in the 1860s to the second-generation Chinese Americans, Chinese Americans have a unique and arduous life experience that distinguishes them from other American ethnic minorities. This study examines three Chinese American writers' literary works which focus on the early life of Chinese Americans in America in order to analyze and interpret the cultural conflict and racial discrimination which are confronted by the main characters in these novels. Although Chinese Americans overcome a large number of obstacles and do their best to make them assimilate into American mainstream society, however,-Chinese Americans are still "outsiders" in America in terms of politics, economy, culture and daily life. In fact, it is pretty difficult for Chinese Americans to be accepted by American mainstream society.Chapter One makes a brief introduction to the related writers and works, the concept of the "melting pot" and the theory of post-colonialism. Besides, it also makes a literature review about the current study of Chinese American literature and takes the texts as the theoretical foundation to explore the life of the Chinese in America in the early period from the perspective of post-colonialism. Chapter Two mainly concerns about Jade Snow Wong and her work Fifth Chinese Daughter. Due to historical and political reasons, Jade Snow Wong is labeled as the "model minority" by American mainstream society. Although Jade Snow Wong achieves some success through her assiduous efforts, the success becomes an illusion in the end due to ingrained racial and gender discrimination, and she is still forced to return to the Chinatown.Chapter Three focuses on Chin Yang Lee and his work Flower Drum Song. This novel presents a much deeper interpretation under the surface of exotic and humorous description. The story spreads under the cultural adjustment of the elder and younger generations, and two plots interlace to develop. Especially, the younger generation like Wang Ta encounters with problems such as racial discrimination, job discrimination and the shortage of Chinese women. However, these Chinese immigrants underestimate the difficulty in the process of assimilation and encounter a large number of obstacles in job and marriage, and so on.Chapter Four concentrates on Louis Chu's Eat a Bowl of Tea, which is known as the first novel portraying a bachelor life of Chinatown realistically. Unlike those romantic autobiographies of Jade Snow Wong and Pardee Lowe, Eat a Bowl of Tea depicts the abnormal bachelor life of Chinatown and their painful experiences in this strange country due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It is this law that isolates Chinatown bachelor society from American mainstream society for several decades and results in a lot of tragedies indirectly.Chapter Five is about the root causes of being inassimilable. That is to say, all of these sufferings in life and painful experiences originate from racial discrimination and a series of exclusion laws against Chinese immigrants.In the end, from the above discussion, I can draw a conclusion that the concept of the "melting pot" has never really existed, Chinese Americans are still viewed as the inassimilable "outsiders" and are excluded by American mainstream culture.