The Research On The Cultural Identity Of Chinese American Literature

Cultural identity is the sign showing a group attributes. There have been piles of twists andturns, bewilderments and sufferings for Chinese American literature, in the context of two differentheterogeneous cultures, i.e. the traditional Chinese culture and American mainstream culture, whenit constructed its own cultural identity.Taking the Chinese American literature as the researchobject, this paper analyzed and explored in-depth its cultural identity. Though straightening out thedevelopment process of Chinese American literature, this research attempts to clearly state itsawkward identity under the background of cultural dislocation, and to further discuss the culturalbackground factors of this kind of cultural dislocation. Combining the contemporary context ofcultural globalization, it manages to change its edge status, rationalizing the constructing thecultural identity of Chinese American literature.This article is divided into the following sections: the introduction part, from the startingpoint—the academic definition of Chinese American literature, is to set up the research object, onthe basis of the reviewing the domestic and foreign research on Chinese American literature. Inthis part, the author presented the research perspectives and methods, and set out the researchpurpose and meaning, and defined the relevant concepts.The problem of cultural identity ofChinese American literature has always been a focus of attention. This paper presented thesignificance of the Chinese American literature research from the perspective of cultural identity,especially from the angle of the relationship of Chinese traditional culture and Americanmainstream culture.The main part of this article firstly reviews the development history of Chinese Americanliterature, i.e. the initial stage, development stage, transition stage and prosperity stage. Then, westart from the historical opportunity of the development of Chinese American literature andgradual acknowledgement by the American mainstream academics, and trace the generating ofChinese-American literature in different historical contexts, searching for meaningfulness ofChinese American literature works on the establishment of Chinese American literature, creationand presentation of Chinese American literature tradition, and systematically sum up ChineseAmerican anthologies, a carrier of popularization of the literary genre in both China and America.Secondly, in the second chapter, the author made a in-depth interpretation of the ChineseAmerican writers and their works, focusing on three aspects, i.e. Chinese nationality, gender andsocial status, to discuss the cultural identity embarrassment of Chinese American literature wandering across the two cultures’ edges. While this embarrassment has at one time incurred itsown hesitation on self-recognition, and even rejected its own native culture. The third chapter ofthis article starts from the angle of cultural analysis, thoroughly analyzed the cultural backgroundfactors creating the cultural identity bewilderment and anxiety of Chinese American literature,from the angle of the religious belief, values, the cuisine and manners and customs. Last part ofthis article is presented though the argument of constructing Chinese American literature culturalidentity, through which the so-called “Arguments between Zhao and Tang” introduced theconstructing strategies of its cultural identity. The focus of their argument lies in the differentways of Chinese American writers’ using the source of Chinese traditional culture in this text.Zhao’s idea pays great attention to the cultural nationalism, opposing rewriting the Chinesetraditional culture and advocating that the Chinese American literature writers should separate theChinese cultural context from American mainstream culture when they do the creation works. Hisattitude is monism, regarding constructing the Chinese American literature culture status, is eitherthis or that, incompatible manner, and he favors retaining the ethnic status—Chinese nativeidentity. Comparatively, Tang’s idea is to break the solo cognitive pattern of being this or thatwhen constructing the Chinese American literature identity, taking the “There is something of eachin the other” cognitive attitude when setting up the cross-culture contexts, and made a morebeneficial exploration regarding the construction of Chinese American literature culture status.