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Analysis of Asian American Culture in "The Joy Luck Clu

Analysis of Asian American Culture in "The Joy Luck Club"
In American literature today, many authors from various cultures are rising above the rest to be recognized. One culture in particular is the Asian culture; whose literature up until the 1970’s was virtually unpublished (Nash 557). Asian people had to overcome many obstacles in order to be accepted as capable of having the skills to write. The Japanese encountered their greatest challenge after the bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II. It is said that, “ The U.S. government uprooted over 120, 000 Japanese Americans despite the fact that two thirds of them were citizens by birth” (Nash 558). Families were given little advanced warning before they were torn from their homes and forced into brutal and unsanitary internment camps (Hsu, 2). At these camps, they were called names such as “Fat Japs” or “Ching Chong Chinaman”. Names and experiences that occurred in these camps would follow Japanese people into the future and encourage stereotypes from all people who were not of Japanese origin. Before long, society’s interpretation said that Japanese people weren’t as capable or as smart as others. The Chinese encountered much of the same after their immigration onto U.S. soil. They were repeatedly told by dominant whites that keeping to themselves and keeping their place was their only worth and duty in life. Therefore, the first generation Chinese spent their lives working nineteen to twenty hour days with their highest hope and goal being to escape the torment from whites. The sons and daughters of these were more determined to be worth something and dreamt of equality. They worked towards breaking away from Chinatowns and adapting to the middle class way of life (Hsu 10). With all this taken into account, Japanese and Chinese literature was at a standstill until the third and fourth generation took the reins. When writing began to grow among the Asian people, publishing and proper recognition was ignored due to the white dominated society. As a result, many determined writers began to use a pen name to disguise their ethnicity (Hsu 11). Unfortunately the powerful words of writers lost their meaning in the translation to English. However, through hard work, determined Asians triumphed. In 1854 a Chinese newspaper was published in San Francisco (Hsu...

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