Thinking Of "cultural Identity" In The Works Of Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston is the first Chinese American writer who is included in the main stream of American literature. Her works and her writing play an important role in studying the character of minority race and the multi-culture of America. Through Kingston's The Woman Worrior, China Men and Tripmaster Monkey, this thesis tries to analyze the significance of her writing in the history of Chinese American migrants and various social environment. The whole paper is divided into three sections: the absence of identity, the puzzle of identity and the construction of identity in order to picture the process from "other" to finding myself and to expressing myself, which reflects the developing trend of Chinese American identity.The real experience made Chinese American become the "other" of society. They made a hard living in a social context that viewed their language, ideas andself-consciousness as alien. With the promotion of internal and external factors, theself-consciousness of Chinese American recovered during the period of 1960-1970.Who am I? Where did I come? Where will I go? They confront many problems concerned closely with culture identity. Kingston expresses herself to the main stream of society with her works in the present multi-culture. Her works try constructing Chinese American identity through the mythology of Chinese American, the epic of heroes and the fable of race. At the same time, Kingston uses "deconstruct" against the narrow theory of race and holds the multiple culture identity. We can make a conclusion that Kingston, together with the white men, tells American "story" from different point of view. She hopes that the Chinese American will become the subject of their country in the social context which treats them equally.