Self-searching

The Chinese American literature originated and evolved in the process of the Chinese immigration into the U.S.A. The cultural identity is an ever lasting theme repeatedly revealed in Chinese American literature by the authors consciously or unconsciously. Reviewing the development of the Chinese American literature, we can easily detect, for a long time from the appearance the Chinese American literature to the end of the last century, the difficulty to establish the cultural identity of the Chinese Americans makes the literature reflect the crises of the cultural identity and seek the identity. The process can be divided briefly into these several periods : the creation of the "other" image excluded from the main trend of the American society, the description of the anxiety to enter the main trend at the cost of their own identity, revolting the prejudice of the stereotype, the later modulation, rethinking the fusion and conflicts between different ethnic groups from a multi-ethnic point of view, finally, the reflection of the confusion and the loss of one' s cultural identity confronted by modern man, the experience of the edgers from the aspect of the universal humanity. During the process, the theme concerning the cultural identity changed from the sought for the essentialism of this identity to the recognition of the cultural variety and difference.Based on the preceding studies done by the some scholars, this MA thesis intends to make a historical comb of the theme in Chinese American literature from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20^th century, which was scarcely done in the former researches. The comb will show the change from the sought for the essentially nationalism to the recognition of the hybrid-tendency and the fusion of different nationalities. The change will be meditated in the background of the history of Chinese American literature, the history of Chinese Americans and American culture and society. The purpose of the study is to provide a general view of the development of Chinese American literature and its characteristic and a new approach to analyzing this literature.