I recently finished "The Joy Luck Club," and while I found it entertaining, I remember the professor saying that the Asian American community widely considered this book (as well as Amy Tan, the author) to be selling them out. On my first reading of the book I didn't really keep my eyes open for this so I wasn't sure how the book was a sellout. After reading critics' opinions though, it becomes clear that many consider this book to be exemplifying stereotypes of Asian Americans rather than dispelling them. A great example of this comes in the four Chinese mother characters: Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. It seems to me that for all intents and purposes these characters are basically the same person. These Chinese mothers are all portrayed as completely static; all of them are overly superstitious and constantly complaining. Their personalities do little to distinguish them from one another, and the only way I could tell that they were in fact different people was by their different names and hometowns. This book seems to promote images of Chinese Americans that are less than dynamic, and it really only serves to distinguish Chinese from American rather than unite the two as Chinese American. Rather than painting a picture that brings the two cultures together, Amy Tan only serves to highlight old-fashioned assumptions about Chinese Americans that promote various stereotypes still seen in our culture today. Rather than showing how similar Chinese Americans are to European Americans, Amy Tan only shows how they are different.
Being Asian American myself, this novel expresses issues that I myself have gone through. Though the novel itself seems to set up very stereotypical and cliche stories of the Chinese mothers, I think the underlying issue of language is one that most people overlook.
Language is such an important element to any culture, whether it's Asian, European, American, etc. While languages can be translated, there are times where the essence of the message, the meaning of a word can be lost in translation. I often times find myself using tagalog words because there isn't an English word the encompasses the feeling I want to convey.
And I think this problem of language is one that puts strain on not only the relationships between mothers and daughters in the novel, but to the identities of each individual woman. The language barrier is one that often times divides and isolated the pairs. Having grown up in America, the daughters feel the need to fit in or mold into their surroundings. They need to BE American. But that's only part of who they are and what their identity is. I know for me, growing up as Filipino American, it was always a struggle to meld these two cultures together, and it was even harder to identify who I was -- was I Filipino? Or was I American? But I learned that life isn't binary. I could be both.
The Joy Luck Club seems stereotypical, especially in the case of the mothers, but I think this is to prove a point. The underlying issues pointed out in this novel -- the language barrier between first and second generation immigrants, and the struggles of melding two cultures together -- is one that most Asian Americans have to work with.
I thought the Joy Luck Club was an interesting read. It is a novel that deals with the stories of 4 Chinese mothers and the stories of their subsequent daughters. The stories are deeply touching, however I felt sometimes over dramatized, but I think the real substance of the novel comes from the interaction between the mothers and the daughters.
To me the novel was mainly about voice, the novel considers who has one in context to first generation immigrants and their daughters. Some evidence of this is the story of Ying-Ying and here loss of a voice due to translation, and most of the daughters struggle with a gap between their mothers past and their future.
In summation, the Joy Luck Club weaves together an almost folk-lore driven story arc with the problems both mother and daughter face with their immigrant status and focuses on the tension this creates.
3 comments:
I recently finished "The Joy Luck Club," and while I found it entertaining, I remember the professor saying that the Asian American community widely considered this book (as well as Amy Tan, the author) to be selling them out. On my first reading of the book I didn't really keep my eyes open for this so I wasn't sure how the book was a sellout. After reading critics' opinions though, it becomes clear that many consider this book to be exemplifying stereotypes of Asian Americans rather than dispelling them. A great example of this comes in the four Chinese mother characters: Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. It seems to me that for all intents and purposes these characters are basically the same person. These Chinese mothers are all portrayed as completely static; all of them are overly superstitious and constantly complaining. Their personalities do little to distinguish them from one another, and the only way I could tell that they were in fact different people was by their different names and hometowns. This book seems to promote images of Chinese Americans that are less than dynamic, and it really only serves to distinguish Chinese from American rather than unite the two as Chinese American. Rather than painting a picture that brings the two cultures together, Amy Tan only serves to highlight old-fashioned assumptions about Chinese Americans that promote various stereotypes still seen in our culture today. Rather than showing how similar Chinese Americans are to European Americans, Amy Tan only shows how they are different.
Being Asian American myself, this novel expresses issues that I myself have gone through. Though the novel itself seems to set up very stereotypical and cliche stories of the Chinese mothers, I think the underlying issue of language is one that most people overlook.
Language is such an important element to any culture, whether it's Asian, European, American, etc. While languages can be translated, there are times where the essence of the message, the meaning of a word can be lost in translation. I often times find myself using tagalog words because there isn't an English word the encompasses the feeling I want to convey.
And I think this problem of language is one that puts strain on not only the relationships between mothers and daughters in the novel, but to the identities of each individual woman. The language barrier is one that often times divides and isolated the pairs. Having grown up in America, the daughters feel the need to fit in or mold into their surroundings. They need to BE American. But that's only part of who they are and what their identity is. I know for me, growing up as Filipino American, it was always a struggle to meld these two cultures together, and it was even harder to identify who I was -- was I Filipino? Or was I American? But I learned that life isn't binary. I could be both.
The Joy Luck Club seems stereotypical, especially in the case of the mothers, but I think this is to prove a point. The underlying issues pointed out in this novel -- the language barrier between first and second generation immigrants, and the struggles of melding two cultures together -- is one that most Asian Americans have to work with.
I thought the Joy Luck Club was an interesting read. It is a novel that deals with the stories of 4 Chinese mothers and the stories of their subsequent daughters. The stories are deeply touching, however I felt sometimes over dramatized, but I think the real substance of the novel comes from the interaction between the mothers and the daughters.
To me the novel was mainly about voice, the novel considers who has one in context to first generation immigrants and their daughters. Some evidence of this is the story of Ying-Ying and here loss of a voice due to translation, and most of the daughters struggle with a gap between their mothers past and their future.
In summation, the Joy Luck Club weaves together an almost folk-lore driven story arc with the problems both mother and daughter face with their immigrant status and focuses on the tension this creates.
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