Chinese American Literature's Cultural Identity Under Different Historical Backgrounds

Chinese American literature, as an ethnic minority literature, has become an important branch in American multi-cultural literature since it came into being at the beginning of last century. Especially after 1940s, a lot of woman writers have come forward to promote Chinese American literature to a higher and higher rank. With their characteristically female point of view, they have an attempt to reflect and explore ethnic history and traditional culture and to rewrite feminine gender culture by recording and recreating their parents and their own life, which is a continuous revision to Chinese American's cultural identity."Cultural identity"has become an important subject in cultural studies in the context of global post-colonialism. Stuart Hall, a founder of cultural study, points out that identity is a never completed and an ongoing process, and a production constructed within representations. It is a matter of"becoming"rather than"being". The different cultural identities of Chinese American's under different historical backgrounds just prove this theory.Recently, there has been plenty of research works about culture identity. It is the same in the field of Chinese American literature. But these researches focus more on individual works like Maxine Hong Kingston's or Amy Tan's. Few research concerns the changing process of cultural identity in Chinese American literature. In order to have a clear idea about the development of cultural identity in this field, the article chooses three representative writers who are under different historical backgrounds to do this research. Via introducing different historical backgrounds and analyzing the different cultural identities, the purpose of this thesis is to elaborate the"changing"of cultural identities of Chinese American literature and give a clear picture about Chinese American literature's development.There are four chapters in this thesis. The first chapter simply introduces the history of Chinese American literature and cultural identity—the important part in cultural study. Strictly speaking, Chinese American literature was formed in the turning of the twentieth century. But Chinese people were oppressed seriously and had to keep silence for a long time resulting from Chinese Exclusion Act. There are almost no literary works in this period. Therefore, the real beginning of Chinese American literature appeared after the abolishment of the Act, that is, after WWII. Because there is some confusion about the translation of cultural identity, the second part of the chapter one will have a try to make it clear. The second chapter mainly analyzes an autobiography, Fifth Chinese Daughter, written by Jade Snow Wong—mother of Chinese American literature. After the abolishment of Chinese Exclusion Act, the cultural identity of Chinese American's began changing from"yellow peril"to"model minority". By the end of WWII, Chinese Americans had become"conditionally acceptable"in white society. Jade Snow Wong fosters an independent and self-reliant image for Chinese American by carefully selecting the content of the book. As a"Model Minority", Chinese Americans are supposed to be restrained, humble, and well-mannered, people who respect law, love education, work hard, and have close-knit, well-disciplined families. The description in Fifth Chinese Daughter proves that Jade Snow Wong is a representative of"model minority". The third chapter is to explore the most influential Chinese American writer—Maxine Hong Kingston and her work the Woman Warrior. Deeply affected by the trend of thought in America in 1960s, Kingston shows her strong rebellious awareness and great concern to female movement. She emphasized her American identity and claimed that The Woman Warrior is a classical American novel in spite of a lot of Chinese cultural signs used in it. The publishing of her works is a refusal to Chinese American's cultural identity as"model minority". And owing to her rebellion against racial discrimination in American society and patriarchy in Chinese culture, she has sorted out her Chinese American identity like a warrior. The fourth part discusses another famous Chinese American writer—Amy Tan, who almost occupies the equal status with Kingston in Chinese American literature. Under the influence from multi-cultural concept and her family experience, the theme of Amy Tan's novels are all concerned with the relationship between"Chinese"mothers and"American"daughters. They have conflicts at the beginning and get integration at the end. This process demonstrates the converging cultural identity of Amy Tan's. The daughters are no longer to represent American cultural only. They become daughters of Chinese culture and American culture.From the analysis above, the cultural identity has kept changing and repositioning in the development of Chinese American literature. Writers under different historical and social backgrounds take different strategies and attitudes toward Chinese culture, which demonstrate different cultural identities. Although almost every cultural identity contains dispute, the development of Chinese American literature promotes the understanding and communication between Chinese and American culture in this process of discussion.