Cultural Identity In The Third Space Of The Love Wife

Gish Jen is one of the most influential Asian women writers, following MaxineHong Kingston and Amy Tan. Jen’s novels mainly discuss the survival status of Chineseimmigrants in America, and their confusion and exploration on cultural identity, whichconveys her sincerely concern and support for American ethnic minorities. Gish Jen, asone of the most representative Chinese American writers, has been making great effortsto explore what is Americanness, who is the real American, and how the group ofChinese American defines their own cultural identity.The Love Wife (2004), Gish Jen’s third novel, opens up a new stage in her writingcareer. With the issues of adoption and interracial marriage in American realistic life asthe starting point, this novel talks about the challenge and conflicts in a mixed-racialnew American family, and depicts the family members’ confusion to cultural identityand their contradiction with “Other”, and portrays how they retrieve to “Self”, how toredefine their cultural identity and come back to a harmonious family through mutualnegotiation and mutual communication. Based on the post-colonial theory and through adetailed analysis of cultural conflicts in the Wong’s family, this thesis reveals the“dilemma situation” of ethnic minorities in the mainstream of American culture, reflectshow Jen redefines the American family as a mixed and interracial unit, and expressesJen’s expectation for pursuing new cultural identity in the “Third Space”.