Identity Seeking

Chinese American literature has undergone a more-than-100-hundred-year -long history, providing a true-to-life revelation of Chinese Americans' struggles in America and their efforts to seek a proper identity. This thesis centers on the identities of Chinese Americans with a cultural analysis of five well-selected influential Chinese American works since the 1960s. They are Louis Chu's Eat a Bowl of Tea (1961), Kingston's The Woman Warrior (1976), China Men (1980), Tripmaster Monkey (1989) and Fae Myenne Ng's Bone(1993). By discussing the five literary texts, this thesis attempts to explore the identity conflicts of Chinese Americans who struggle and survive in the Sino-US cultures and between the worlds.The theme of Chinese American literary works reflects Chinese Americans' concerns. They desire to search for a new identity so that they can establish a harmonious relationship between American culture and Chinese heritage. They come along with a hope that they can be recognized as someone different from what they used to be. Chinese Americans have to find a balance in order to locate themselves. Maxine Hong Kingston's three volumes, The Woman Warrior, China Men and Tripmaster Monkey, disclose the struggles of Chinese Americans and their inner conflict when they confront Chinese and American cultures. Kingston believes that by retelling Father and Mother's stories, Chinese Americans build their new cultural identity.Most significantly, what they desire is not limited to an individual identity seeking. And this request has to do with a bicultural identity. So they make efforts to creat a distinctively Chinese American sensibility, an authentical Chinese American cultural identity.The thesis consists of five sections.The Introduction comes first. Identity is an important issue when making researches on Chinese American literature. This thesis chooses to study identity seeking and belonging. The theme of the thesis is given in this section.