Sharon Hall Gehbauer
LITR 5733 Seminar in American Cultures
Summer 1999
Research Paper

The Chinese American Woman's Search for Identity as Portrayed in

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

When Chinese immigrants enter the United States of America, it is evident from the start that they are in a world far different than their homeland. Face to face with a dominant culture that often times acts and thinks in ways contrary to their previous lives, immigrants are on a difficult path of attempting to become an American. Chinese immigrants find themselves often caught between two worlds: the old world of structured, traditional and didactic China and the new world of mobile, young and prosperous America. They nostalgically look back at China longing for a simpler life but look at the United States as a land of opportunity and freedom that they did not know in China. For this is why they came to America in the first place, to provide for their children and themselves what they could not in China. To do this, of course, they are faced with the challenge of assimilating. Learning the language, acquiring education, owning property, etc. are all ways to seize the American Dream. However this poses a problem for the Chinese immigrant for, in the process of assimilation, they lose some of their Chinese culture. This especially rings true for the children of Chinese immigrants: the second-generation Chinese Americans.

Second-generation Chinese Americans are faced with a special challenge. Their parents have endured the struggle to come to this country, make a place for them and provide for them the opportunities that they would not have in China. And yet, being either too young to remember living in China or being born in the United States, the second-generation Chinese Americans finds themselves quite severed from their Chinese heritage. The only Chinese culture that they receive is what their parents are holding on to in America. The second generation is busy assimilating - absorbing American beliefs and practices even if those beliefs are negative views of their own race. But can the second generation Chinese Americans be truly happy as completely assimilated American for in this they are denying their heritage which runs much deeper than sallow skin and almond shaped eyes? Undoubtedly, the most profound struggle for the second generation Chinese American will be to seek out their identity and to find some fusion between the polarized worlds in their lives.

The second generation Chinese American's search for identity is indeed a challenge; however, the second generation Chinese American woman search for identity is magnified. For not only does the Chinese American woman struggle to find her ethnic identity, she must also find her strength and power as a woman. It is a dual struggle. But not only is it a dual struggle, it is a dual reality. The two entities cannot be separated. As Shirley Geok-Lim and Amy Ling stated so eloquently in their introduction the Reading the Literatures of Asian America, race and gender categories "are never unitary and separate' but are "historically and socioculturally embedded constructions" and "must be understood as interlocking and provisionally predicated terms" (Kain 173). In other words, for our subject, Chinese American women, it must be understood that to be a woman is to be Chinese and to be Chinese is to be a woman. The two are intimately linked. So in finding her identity, the search must be in both of these arenas.

In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan addresses the second-generation Chinese-American woman's struggle to find her ethnic and feminine identity through the sto6-,) telling of four immigrant mothers from China and their American-born daughters. As the mothers reveal their stories growing up in China and4ventually leaving as a result of Japanese invasion, and the daughters tell of their attempts to assimilate under the powerful scrutiny of their mothers, we come to understand the awesome challenge the Chinese American woman must face - a need to become an American woman, but at the same time recognize that in becoming a woman she must reconcile and learn from her Chinese-born mother. What can the mothers give to their daughter that will help them in America? Why must the daughter hear the stories? What is truly being revealed? Is it the key to finding true identity and resolution? Amy Tan explores a Chinese American truth by answering these questions for her and for all who read The Joy Luck Club. When interviewed about her first novel, Amy Tan states "In fact, my belief is that you find the truth by asking a number of questions. And when you talk to 100 different people and get their stories on a situation, that's what truth is' (Seaman 2). Before we explore the fictional portrayal of the Chinese American search for identity, let us quickly overview the history of Chinese women in America after 1945 in order to gain a better understanding of the setting in The Joy Luck Club.

The status of Chinese American women in America changes as the status of American women changes; however, they often had a double handicap of being both racially different and women. Many Chinese American women growing up in the 1950's experienced cultural conflicts and identity crises (Yung 88). At home or in Chinese schools, women were to be unquestioningly obedient to their elders, and in American schools, they were encouraged to think as an individual and to develop personal prerogative. The Chinese community expected women to be soft-spoken and reserved while American women were encouraged to be outgoing and gregarious (Yung 88). In order to completely understand the double burden of being Chinese and female that contemporary Chinese American women must bear, one must be familiar with traditional Chinese traditions as related to the status of women. In a traditional Chinese society, women are subordinate to men. Confucian doctrine, in order to keep women in their place, created the three obediences and the four virtues. The three obediences were to be obedient to one's father when unmarried, to one's husband when married and to one's son when widowed. The four virtues were to be ethical, to speak little, to adorn oneself to please the man and to do all the chores in the household (Tsai 157). Based on this belief system one can very quickly understand how this could not only make life difficult at home for the Chinese American women but also could handicap them in the larger society that demands assertiveness and leadership skills to get ahead. However, in the 1970's the number of Chinese American women attending universities and colleges rose dramatically as well as the number of Chinese women working outside the home (Tsai 157). Education and employment opened new doors for Chinese American women both in social and psychological arenas. It is now far easier to shed the old world belief systems to obtain a greater sense of who they are as individuals which becomes the subject of many pieces of literature, as in Amy Tan's, The Joy Luck Club.

when one is both Chinese American and a woman. in this novel, her search for identity

is manifested through the relationship with her Chinese mother. The novel is divided into

four parts. Each mother, Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong and Ying - ying

St.Clair, tells two stories usually about their past in pre-1949 China. Their daughters,

Jing-mei (June) Woo, Rose Mu, Waverly Jong, and Lena St.Clair, tell two stories as well

which usually revolve around their relationship to their mother. The first set of stories is

about them growing up, and the second set of stories tells about their adulthood. This

construction of mother and daughter stories suggests how the "continuation of the matriarchal line" is the key to finding one's Chinese identity for the daughters (Feng 4). An-mei Hsu further elaborates on this idea when she states, "All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all are going the same way (Tan 215)." The daughters, of course, fight what some might say is a fatalistic belief system, but the interconnectedness between mother and daughter can bring reconciliation and resolution.

In the beginning of the daughters' stories, it is evident that reconciliation is far

from their minds. They want separation. They want to be American. It is in the daughters' stories that we identify the generational and cultural conflict that they experience. By telling the stories of both mothers and daughters, "Tan initially seems to solve what Linda Hunt, examining Maxine Hong Kingston, describes as a basic problem for a Chinese-American woman: 'being simultaneously insider (a person who identifies strongly with her cultural group) and outsider (deviant and rebel against tradition), she cannot figure out from which perspective to speak' (Shear 2)." To speak as outsiders, these daughters rebel against their mothers. Critics have noted that in writings by Asian-American women, "issues of matrilineage are closely bound with those of acculturation and race. The mother is the figure of not only maternality but also of racial consciousness (Heung 4)." The two are intimately connected. So to find ethnic identities as Chinese women the mothers must set into motion the process of helping their daughter to mature and begin the journey, though the daughters are often not receptive to the mother's attempts to educate I-hem.

As children, the daughters in The Joy Luck Club struggle to throw off their Chinese culture, hence their mother's authority. Veronica Wang states in "Reality and Fantasy: The Chinese-American Woman's Quest for Identity," that the object of "'confrontation" for a daughter is the mother, "the source of authority for her and the most single powerful influence from China" (Shear 2). Waverly Jong opens up her story by saying, "I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect for others, and eventually, though none of us knew it at the time, chess games" (Tan 89) "Waverly recognizes that she has learned a valuable skill from her Chinese mother, a skill from the old world that could be of use to her in the new world. Waverly, however, is not so open to her mother's concept of "luck." Represented by the red jade tablet given to her by her mother. According to Lindo Jong, "You don't have to be so smart to win chess. It is just tricks" (Tan 170) "All American" Waverly has a hard time understanding why her mother believes that "luck" and tricks are more valuable than "skill" and "smartness" (Xu 7). To Waverly, Lindo's strategy of "sneakiness" or "trickiness" are "miserably nonheroic and shamefully Chinese" though from the mother's point of view these skills are meant to prepare her for dealing with the unpredictable (Xu 8). Lindo Jong confesses:

These lessons from her mother are vital for Waverly to find out where her true strength lies, but Waverly, in true stereotype of American youth and their attitudes towards their elders, rebels against her mother when she thinks she is taking too much pleasure in her chess succe ss: "Why do you have to show me off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess?" (Tan 99). Waverly's comment is met with a "sharp silence," and "she herself is finally a victim of her mother's more authoritarian deployment of the tactic, as it suddenly take the form of simply ignoring her" (Shear 3). A mother's silence is a most dangerous place to be for a young girl, for in this silence she loses her identity. The search is postponed.

Where does Lindo Jong learn this art of silence? She learns it in China where she

is victim to an unhappy arranged marriage. " I wondered why my destiny had been

decided, why I should have an unhappy life so someone else could have a happy one" (Tan 58) By staying silent and being watchful and obedient she was able to devise a plan of escape from this fate. And when she wants her daughter to have different fate in America with America's opportunities, she is met with resistance. Lindo Jong expresses a typical attitude: "I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character" (Tan 253). Her plans for her daughter are met with significant resistance. Waverly Says "I'm my own person." Lindo, in response, thinks, "How can she be her own person? When did I give her up (Tan 253)?" This interchange sums up most eloquently what is the central conflict within these women's lives. The daughter struggles to be her own person, but the mother recognizes that to be her own person she must accept her heritage.

The mothers fear that their daughters do not see them for who they are and what they have been through and thus have lost their strength and voice. When June Woo struggles with what she is to tell her twin sisters about her mother when her Auntie's give her the money to take the trip to China, she asks them, "What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don't know anything (Tan 40)." The aunties, in reaction, "become crazy." They immediately drown her with what to tell for they are "frightened" that their daughters are as "ignorant" of "the truths and hopes that brought them to America" (Tan 40). The mothers and their stories reveal to us how these Chinese women attain their strength and character that they want to pass on to their daughters. The sad fact is, we hear these profound stories, but often the daughters are the last to hear them. And when they do, they see them as nothing but "Chinese Fairy tale[s)" (Tan 25). Much of what the daughters experience from their mothers is filled with shame. When June becomes the fourth comer of the Joy Luck Club to replace her deceased mother, she reflects upon her childhood experiences of witnessing this ritual where the women "dresses up in funny dresses with stiff stand-up collars and blooming branches of embroidered silk sewn over their breasts" (278), she imagines "Joy Luck was a shamefull Chinese custom," even though her mother tells her of the stories of how she created the club to find joy while being occupied by the Japanese in China (Schell 1). So despite the fact that the mothers tell the stories, the daughters dismiss them as "Chinese" and therefore a hindrance in them becoming American.

June, in order to form her own separate identity, struggles to distance herself from what she sees to be strict obedience that she recognizes in traditional Chinese women, for June's mother states that "I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's mikry, to eat my own bitterness" reflecting the nature of Chinese female submissiveness (Schell 2). June fears that she will be dragged into this ancient Chinese culture by the sheer power of her mother and be transformed

June's embarrassment of her mother reflects her assimilation and absorption of American stereotypes of Chinese women. June tries very hard to separate herself from her mother and Chinese heritage, and yet she ends up being as submissive to her mother's scrutiny and America's beliefs as her mother is forced to be in China (Schell 2). She tries desperately to please her mother and her ambitions for her, but finally she realizes that "I could only be me (Tan 142)" (Shear 6).

Lena experiences similar circumstances in her marriage. She finds herself "surrendering everything" to her American husband, Harold, "without caring what I got in return" (Tan 160; Schell 2). Her marriage becomes a series of balance sheets where they attempt to make everything equal, a very American ideal. However, she soon begins to wonder, "what is the point?" (Tan 164). Her mother, Ying-Ying St.Clair, seeing her daughter's failing marriage and taking some responsibility, "voices the anxiety and helplessness shared by all the mothers in the book" (Shear 5):

The mothers realize that to tell the stories of their fives and their past that they ensure both ethnic continuity and the power of being a woman (Xu 1). Without a memory of the past and her heritage, Lena "allows herself to be borne by the bustle of life, she doesn't know who she' and cannot hold herself together (Xu 1). " However, Lena is not the only daughter who suffers from what some might refer to as an "identity crisis."

Rose Hsu Jordan's marriage to Ted is also in peril. She, "like her mother, An-mei, has too little wood, and as a consequence, she bends to other people's ideas" (Xu 4). This concept of character elements being represented by elements of nature, referred to as Wuhsing, is a distinctly Chinese belief Ideally each person should have their elements in balance, but of course this is rarely the case. For this reason, names are often given to children to offset an imbalance. Rose's name is given to her to "add wood to her character (Xu 4)." Her marriage to Ted breaks up because he becomes annoyed by her lack of decision. An-mei tells her daughter to make hcr decision, but rather than listen to her mother's advice, she delays the process and goes to see a psychiatrist--a very

American thing to do. She finds herself quite frustrated with this process, for even though she feels she is making strives in terms of fantasizing about avenging herself against Ted, he, the psychiatrist, "just looked bored (Tan )" (Xu 4). It is in this frustrating experience that Rose has a dream where she sees her mother planting trees and bushes in planter boxes, adding wood to both of them. We then see how the mother-daughter relationship7 is defined by being Chinese American (Xu 4). She is both reunited with her mother, the key to her feminine strength and her ethnicity in the Chinese wisdom of Wu-hsing.

The mothers have much to pass down to their daughters. This is evident to us as we read their heroic stories of living in and leaving China. The mothers' main difficulties in their lives are struggles with what fate has handed down to them. But for the daughters, the main struggle is in making choices (Shear 5). According to Rose Hsu Jordan, America offers too many choices with "so much to think about, so much to decide. Each decision meant a turn in another direction (Tan 191)." The daughters are basically making similar decisions as their mothers did in China in terms of moving out of family relationships, but these decisions involve thoughts about divorce, why their marriages are failing, do their husbands or future husbands fit into their lives (Shear 5). All of these concerns are undoubtedly very common concerns for women. But these women's decisions are tainted with the fact that they are Chinese. The daughters' struggle with choices could possibly be a result of a lack of "chi". Ying-ying St.Clair, mother of Rose, realizes that the reason her daughter has no backbone is because she is lacking "chi." Chi refers to a fundamental self-respect, a desire to exceed, a willingness to stand up for one's self and one's family (Shear 5). Ying-ying blames herself for not telling her daughter about her life in China and all that happened there that still haunts Ying-ying to this day. She realizes that by keeping her "true nature hidden", the nature of being a tiger, and staying "quiet for so long" that her daughter "has no chi"(Tan 252). This is Ying-ying's

"greatest shame," that she did not pass this strength down to the mother (Tan 252). The key to passing this strength from mother to daughter is to tell the stories.

Both the beginning and the end stories from the point of view of June Woo suggest that the mother's goals of passing down strength and heritage to their daughters has been complete. When June replaces her mother at the mah jong table, the two generations of Chinese Americans, separated by age and culture, are bound together by "family ties and continuity of ethnic heritage (Xu 11)." The family reunion in China suggests a journey of growth, ethnic awakening and a return to home, not just for June, but metaphorically for all the daughters in the book. The experience is a revelation - "a sudden unveiling of the authentic meaning of being 'Chinese' (Xu 11)." June exclaims:

Being Chinese becomes a lofty goal rather than something she has been trying to shed all these years. The other daughters experience similar moments of revelation, though more subtle, where they become more receptive to their mothers and to the wisdom of their cultural heritage opening up their lives to change, growth and authenticity (Xu 12).

June's trip to China and reui~ion with her two half sisters reinforces the idea that for the second generation Chinese American woman coming to terms with one's identity both as a woman and Chinese is the path to truejoy. In seeking out her mother's history and presence in the sister's, June is able to find the feeling that she has been searching for--that she is complete. She belongs to her family and that family inherently belongs to the larger family of China. How is she able to do this? In the death of her mother, she is sent on a quest, a search, to remember the stories, to find out the truth, to bring her mother's dreams to fruition and in the process find herself It is indeed a glorious celebration of feminine strength and ethnic identification.

Works Cited

Feng, Pin-chia. "Amy Tan." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Volume 173: American Novelists since World War II. Fifth Series. Gale Reseach, 1996: 281 -289.

Heung, Marina. "Daughter-Text/Mother-Text: Matrilineage in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club." Feminist Studies. Fall 1993: 597 - 613.

Kain, Geoffrey. Ideas of Home: Literature of Asian Migration. East Lansing:

Schell, Orville. "Your Mother is in Your Bones." The New York Times Book Review.

Seaman, Donna, Amy Tan. "The Booklist Interview: Amy Tan."' Booklist.

Shear, Walter. "Generational Differences and the Diaspora." Critigue

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Vintage Contemporaries. New York:

Tsai, Shan-Shan Henry. The Chinese Experience in America. Bloomington and

Xu, Ben. "Memory and the Ethnic Self. Reading Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club."

Yung, Judy. Chinese Women in America: A Pictorial History. Seattle and London:

(several found in Gale Literary Database t)v-(http://www.galenet.com/servlet/GLD/hits?c...n=10&1=d&NA=Amy+Tan=&The+Joy+-Luck+Club)