The Struggle Of The Ethnic Self In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

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Recommended: Culture Analysis of The Joy Luck Club

The struggle of these second generational daughter’s to find their own niche is discussed more at length by Ben Xu from St. Mary’s college of California in his academic journal, Memory And The Ethnic Self: Reading Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, where he states “The daughters, unlike their mothers, are American not by choice, but by birth. Neither the Chinese nor the American culture is equipped to define them except in rather superficial terms.” (Xu 15) his analysis paints a dark picture for average Chinese American daughter who is in a difficult position being neither fully-Chinese nor All- American whose struggle to choose a side, and the realization that neither one fit’s, creates a mini- identity crisis. To make matters more difficult The mother’s spurred on by fear that their daughter’s will lose total connection with their ethnic origins, push harder, which only makes their daughters further retreat within themselves. As a result there is nearly a complete aversion by the daughters in the novel to anything relating their mother’s traditional background, resulting in a loss of culture and a mini failure on behalf of the mothers.
A second failure on behalf of the mothers that is highlighted in Tan’s novel, is the failure at times to maintain the respect of their daughters. Due to the lack of cultural understanding the gap between mother and daughter causes defiance and mistrust from the younger generation “I didn’t have to do what my mother said anymore. I wasn’t her slave. This wasn’t China. I had listened to her before and look what happened. She was the stupid one.” (Tan 152) the anger within the second generation of daughters again comes from a place of misunderstanding of their own cultural traditions. This misinterpreta...

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... The Novel 35.1 (2003): 89. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 July 2014.
"Spirituality, Religion, & Faith: Asian-Nation." Asian Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America. Asian-Nation., n.d. Web. 16 July 2014. http://www.asian-nation.org/religion.shtml
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. Print.
Wood, Michelle Gaffner. "Negotiating The Geography Of Mother-Daughter Relationships In Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club.” Midwest Quarterly 54.1 (2012): 82-96. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 July 2014.
Xu, Ben. "Memory And The Ethnic Self: Reading Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." Melus 19.1 (1994): 3. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 July 2014.
Yew, Wally. "Immigrant Families 1: Three Basic Conflicts within the Family." Chinese Christian Mission. Chinese Christian Mission USA, Feb. 1987. Web. 20 July 2014. http://ccmusa.org/u2u/u2u.aspx?id=198702-2

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