An Analysis Of Lan Cao's Monkey Bridge

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Although difficult in a foreign environment, East-Asian immigrants felt compelled to retain their culture to leave a legacy of their heritage. From the beginning, Asian immigrants knew they did not belong in the white environment. Mai describes the prejudice, “we would never be welcome in this country . . . set apart from everyone else” (Cao 65). In Obasan, Canadians ridicule the Japanese by constantly calling them “Japs,” a demeaning term. Even from a young age, the white children in the novel pick on and segregate away from their “yellow peers.” To cope and keep traditions and cultures, immigrants created communities to support each other. Perhaps one of the most famous cities that still holds on to its beginning roots is Chinatown, San Fransisco …show more content…

Important, but difficult in the Western environment, many immigrants struggled when attempting to retain culturally religious practices and superstitions. In Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge, Thanh is haunted with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from her experiences during the Vietnam War, and this contributes to her fear that she did not uphold her filial duties in Vietnam. Two important ideologies in Southeast Asia, Buddhism and karma preach that a being must be a “worthy person” to enter Nirvana (Welty 291). Constantly plagued and troubled, Thanh feels she can not uphold her cultural daughter duties to her karma in America. This anxiety eventually leads to Thanh’s downfall as she believes the only way to save her own daughter from her negative karma is committing suicide. Yet before Thanh takes her own life, she finally feels tranquil because she can finally experience a closeness to her true home, “And for the first time since our arrival in Virginia, I can almost feel the geometric shape of the shimmering rice fields outside . . . the call of my heart” (Cao 253). Amy Tan’s characters in The Joy Luck Club concern and contemplate with the reverence of traditional Chinese superstitions. Although these characters live in the United States, their hearts still align with their Chinese superstitions. Ying-Ying St. Clair struggles with her life in America. She feels uneasy and believes the United State’s “qi” gives her poor fortune. Her paranoia leads to her suffering with depression “as if she had died and become a living ghost” (Tan

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