From Scattered Literary Theory To Look At The Chinese American Literature In Cultural Perspective

The term"Diaspora"in Ancient Greek means a scattering or sowing of seeds. It originally referred to the dispersion of Jews outside of Israel in the sixth century B.C., when they were exiled to Babylonia. Later, it refers to the historical phenomena of any people or ethnic population who are forced or induced to emigrate from ancestral homeland vagabondizing all around the world as well as the relative issues concerning adaptation, conflicts and integration in the social, economic and cultural exchange between Diaspora community and residential dominant society. To some extent, the process of exploring Diaspora identity is the historically and culturally"root–seeking", the reflection on the migration, conflicts, co-existence, and integration among races, the major aspects of cross-ethnic, cross-cultural study. The dual-identity endows Diaspora writers with dual-perspective. Diaspora writers go back and forth between ancestral culture and the residential one, forming the space for the cross-culture dialogue. This also serves as an exemplary case for the ancestral culture manifestation in the situation of the globalization.Chinese-American as an ethnic Diaspora group is dissimilated and aliened by American dominant community, emerging as"otherness". Therefore, identification of Chinese American is the motif of Chinese American literary works. Chinese Diaspora in America are deeply influenced by their ancestral Chinese traditional culture which collides with western culture in the country of residence. The conflicts and assimilation between two cultures are revealed in their literary works. The inclusion of Chinese culture elements in Chinese American literary works is obvious a cross-culture practice. Such writing provides a kind of paradigm of Chinese culture presentation within western context.From cultural perspective, this thesis adopts diaspora theory to explore Chinese conventional culture, the isolated social status of Chinese American and the reconstruction of their cultural identities in literature works. The thesis is divided into six sections and the author comments on aspects of the development of diaspora theory and Chinese American literature, China narrative, the application of Chinese conventional culture in Chinese American literature works, cultural context and exploring the way of cultural identity. In conclusion, as Chinese diaspora in US, they should take Chinese conventional culture as psychological remedy and blend two cultures as their unique Chinese American culture. Only in this way can they obtain their veritable cultural identities.