A Process Of Difficult Assimilation: Female ABCs' Struggle And Endeavor In The U.S. Mainstream

The Joy Luck Club is the masterpiece of Amy Tan, who is a female American-born Chinese. In her novel, four pairs of Chinese-born mothers and American-born daughters are delicately characterized. The analysis and interpretation of these four ABC daughters' life and work are the point of departure for my thesis. By means of elaborating on these ABC women's troubled relationship with their Chinese mothers and unequal status in their marriage to white guys, I want to make my argument clear, i.e. Female ABCs have many difficulties in their assimilation into the U.S. mainstream, though they have achieved certain progress and success through their persistent struggle and endeavor.These difficulties and dilemmas are not exclusive to the women characters in The Joy Luck Club. They can also be found in other works of art where female ABCs are the heroines. It seems that the writers, especially those female ABC writers, tend to make use of fictions as their weapons to fight against the double suppression from the patriarchal authority over the Chinatowns, where they spend most of their childhood and juvenile time; and the racist white society, where they compete fiercely and desperately for their due rights in the professional field and daily life.Female ABCs' difficulties in their assimilation into the U.S. mainstream can be explained and interpreted by resorting to many other texts, such as the history of Chinese immigrants, the concept of identity-crisis and identity-seeking, and the narration and analysis of female ABCs' awkward and delicate positions in the U.S. society.With the help of the analysis and interpretation of all these texts, I hope to make my argument understood by the readers, who can have a clear idea of the difficulties and dilemmas that female ABCs encounter in the U.S. and pay more attention to those texts that focus on all these related themes in fictional or non-fictional texts. I believe this can help to make female ABCs less silenced and more heard among the readers.