华裔美国移民文化与文学思潮的后移民审视

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Table of Contents

ABSTRACT in English

ABSTRACT in Chinese

Chapter 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1

§1.1 Identities.............................................................................................................................2

§1.2 Mistaken Identities .............................................................................................................5

Chapter 2 Transformative Sense of “Home” .................................................................... 9

§2.1 Chinese American Immigration History—Encountering Racism ..................................... 9

§2.2 What a Chinese American Is Thought to Be ................................................................... 12

Chapter 3 Constructional Sense of “Home” in Chinese American Literature ................19

§3.1 Objects ............................................................................................................................. 21

§3.2 Communication in Daily Life .......................................................................................... 26

§3.3 Chinatown, the Real “Home?” .........................................................................................30

Chapter 4 Constructing Identity through Language ........................................................35

§4.1 Self-Assessment of Chinese American Images ............................................................... 35

§4.2 Chinese American Images in Mainstream Culture .......................................................... 40

Chapter 5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................47

Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 51

在读期间公开发表的论文和承担科研项目及取得成果

Chapter 1 Introduction

To us already,

a birthplace is no longer home.

The place we were brought up is not either.

Our history, rushing to us

through fields and hills, is our home.

—Nameless

I began my thesis with this stanza by an Asian American poet, now that “home” has

become a major theme—if not the main theme—in Asian American literature, which

contributes a significant and growing aspect of US American literature. As we put

ourselves in the context of globalization, when millions of immigrants and refugees of

different nationalities live outside their own borders, we need to rethink the question

“where home is,” which is now invested with more urgency than ever before. Luis

Francia once pointed out, “From the emblematic figure of the Wandering Jew to the

late-twentieth-century Vietnamese boatperson, ideas of ‘home’ have always played a

central and essential role in the ways that we imagine the world or, more specifically, in

the ways that we imagine relating to it…. It is not surprising, then, that the idea of home

remains fundamental to all cultures, with its empowering, utopian allure” (Francia, 192).

On the other hand, “home”—as an important concept in Chinese traditions and

culture—could never be ignored, when we analyze the literary works written by

Chinese American authors. Although Chinese American literature is still an unknown

term to many Chinese readers, research on this branch of the significant Asian American

literature would be quite helpful with studying and understanding US American

literature, culture and society. This thesis will focus on the sense of “home” in Chinese

American literature from perspectives of both cultural and literary analyses. I’ll try to

figure out how Chinese American writers build their own “home,” namely, their own

identity and belonging, and what kind of “home” it is, after time and space are both

transferred. Additionally, more attention will be paid to the second generation of

Chinese American immigrants, as the works concerned in this thesis are generally

written by them.

A Postcolonial Observation of Some Cultural and Literary Phenomena in Relation to Chinese

American Diaspora

Among various cultural theories, many are about the influence of culture and

history on identity formation. Culture and history are the main factors for the

construction of both collective and individual identities. They serve as points of

departure for how one perceives others and how one sees oneself. In cultural contexts,

stereotypes and misconceptions are created, and in culture, they can be deconstructed

again.

§1.1 Identities

Just now everybody wants to talk about “identity.” As a keyword in

contemporary politics, it has taken on so many different connotations that

sometimes people obviously are not even talking about the same thing. One

thing at least is clear—identity only becomes an issue when it is in crisis,

when something assumed to be fixed, coherent and stable is displaced by the

experience of doubt and uncertainty. (Mercer, 43)

Even though more than fifteen years has passed since Kobena Mercer pointed out the

presence of “identity,” his presentation still bears much truth. In the age of globalization,

transnationalization, ceaseless wars, and political and economic instability, identity—

with all its different connotations—has become an inescapable “issue.”

The cause for the various connotations mentioned by Mercer lies in the very

nature of identity: identity is a process, namely its own construction. The identity of a

person consists of many different aspects, fixed and shifting, self-assigned and assigned

by others. Thus, it can vary depend on the time, the point of view, and the physical and

intellectual location of the defining/defined person.

As a construction, many factors influence the identity formation, including culture,

history, language, physical appearance, and religious rites, etc. Yet, culture, history and

ethnicity are the central and closely intertwined aspects. Kathryn Woodward writes

about the role of culture in the definition of identities: “Identities are produced,

consumed and regulated within culture—creating meanings through symbolic systems

of representation about the identity positions which we might adopt” (Woodward, 2).

Edward Said offers a similar opinion, even though he views it from the other side: “We

Chapter 1 Introduction

live of course in a world not only of commodities but also of representation, and

representations—their production, circulation, history, and interpretation—are the very

element of culture” (Said, 66).

Stuart Hall defines two differing models of what he calls “cultural identity.” “The

first defines ‘cultural identity’ in terms of one, shared culture, a sort of collective ‘one

true self,’ hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed ‘selves,’

which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common” (Hall, 1998: 233). In

this model, shared history and cultural codes form a frame of reference, a sense of

belonging to “one people.”

Hall’s description of this model of cultural identity is almost equivalent to the

common definition of “ethnic identity/ethnicity.” In contrary, Hall’s second model

presents that “as well as the many points of similarity, there are also critical points of

deep and significant difference which constitute ‘what we really are’.” One’s experience

or identity is not unique or fixed. Here, Hall provides a constantly transformative view.

The definition of cultural identities in the second model is as follows: “Far from being

eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of

history, culture and power, far from being grounded in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past,

which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves

into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by,

and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past” (Grossberg, 87-107).

In both models, history is considered important. However, in the second model,

the idea of history is not as a fact but as a narrative that can be changed and interpreted

in order to find some space and position for oneself. If identity consists of the changing

conceptions of history, culture and power, it is in the process of changing itself. Thus,

stable notions of identity are replaced by the process of identification, which depends

strongly on history: “Identification goes on changing and part of what is changing is not

the nucleus of the ‘real you’ inside, it is history that’s changing. History changes your

conception of yourself” (Hall, 1989: 9-20). For Hall, history is not only a starting point

from which to speak, but it is “also an absolutely necessary resource in what one has to

say.” Here, history is not fixed or readily available. The parts of the identity that are

buried in history ought to be actively recovered. This process needs to be learned and

discovered by each individual person. Summarizing what Hall calls the “new

A Postcolonial Observation of Some Cultural and Literary Phenomena in Relation to Chinese

American Diaspora

ethnicities” and their relation to history, Berner writes: So the relationship of the kind of

ethnicity I am talking about to the past is not a simple, essential one—it is a constructed

one. It is constructed in history; it is constructed politically in part. It is part of narrative.

We tell ourselves the stories of the parts of our roots in order to come into contact,

creatively, with it. So this new kind of ethnicity—the emergent ethnicities—has a

relationship to the past, but it is a relationship that is partly through memory, partly

through narrative, one that has to be recovered. It is an act of cultural recovery (Berner

cf. Hall, 1998: 222).

The “new ethnicities” are “neither locked into the past nor able to forget the past.”

Opposed to the “new ethnicities” are the “old ethnicities,” which cling to the past and

“can only be sure that they really exist at all if they consume everyone else.” Hall quests

for a notion of an identity “that knows where it came from, where home is, but also

lives in the symbolic—in the Lacanian sense—knows you can’t really go home again.

You’ve got to find out who you are in the flux of the past and the present” (Hall, 1999:

83-98).

Stephen Cornell, who also works on this subject, starts from another point of

position. His theories on narratives and identity originate from sociology and

psychology instead of the field of cultural studies. Yet he draws similar conclusions. In

his article “That’s the Story of Our Life,” he establishes three theses: The first is that

narrative lies at the heart of many ethnic identities. ... The second point is that the

narrative form of ethnicity becomes most obvious in periods of rupture, when the taken-

for-grantedness that characterizes most collective identities is disturbed. The third point

is that the narrativization of ethnicity is intimately bound up in power relations,

although in particular ways (Cornell, 52).

Cornell, too, assumes that narratives and the identities generated by them can

change over time. In correspondence to his theories above, the process of creating a

narrative (narrativization) consists of three parts, all of them liable to change: selection,

plotting, interpretation. Important historical or traumatic events as well as banalities can

be selected as the object of a narrativization. Cornell defines narrative as “the relational

ordering and framing of event and experience—is peculiarly suited to … sense-making

tasks” (Cornell, 44). Similar to Hall, Cornell also thinks of the re-telling of history as

Chapter 1 Introduction

one means to start a narrative and thus start the process of identification. If individual

and collective identity can be constructed through narratives, literature becomes

powerful means for defining the self and the other and describing belonging and

difference.

The United States, as a former colony and colonizer at different times, always

provides bounds of historical materials for identity narratives. These arise from the

indigenous, from African people dislocated and brought to the new world, and, most of

all, from immigrants coming from all over the world. Berner points out: the United

States is comprised of these people and their stories. The best-known narrative is the

American dream. It was changed, adapted, and told in many different variations by

many different voices. It is the story of becoming American, of belonging. While some

aspects of these various narratives might be similar, others vary heavily depending on

the historical and political situation, and on the ethnicity, class, and gender of the

narrator.

Chinese Americans have their own identity narratives, their own stories about

becoming American. In the process of building Chinese American identity, various

identity models can be recognized. Both of Hall’s ethnicities, new and old, can be found.

As we will see in Chinese American literature, histories as well as collective

experiences play important roles in the construction of Chinese American identity.

§1.2 Mistaken Identities

If culture is the site in which identities are defined, important questions then include,

who is in control of culture? What are their intentions? The manipulation of the image

of certain individuals or groups of people becomes blatantly overt in times of crisis. It is

then that one’s own identity is most directly threatened, that the need to diminish other

ways of being arises, and it is then that Hall’s “old ethnicities” try to eat up the new

ones. War propaganda both on political and cultural level is a well-known example. In

order to harm, oppress, or simply run down a certain group of people, this group is often

depicted in an extremely negative way. Stereotyping—i.e. the use and dissemination of

simplified and often misleading ideas, mostly based on difference—is the easiest way in

which to achieve this. While it used to be easy to recognize stereotypes, in recent years

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TableofContentsABSTRACTinEnglishABSTRACTinChineseChapter1Introduction......................................................................................................1§1.1Identities.....................................................................................................................

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