All mothers and daughters have conflict. While, “the daughter may look like the mother, or even identify with her... the two are still worlds apart from each other” (Xu). Immigration and assimilation compounds this problem, putting more distance in an already complicated relationship. Each has a different perspective because of their experiences. Language and cultural barriers separate individuals from the communities they are leaving and the communities they are joining. In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the author utilizes heart wrenching stories, linguistic barriers, and the symbolism of the “American Dream” to comment on the distancing properties of cultural assimilation to the immigration system in America.
The immigration motif begins
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In the prologue, the narrator hopes that, ”’In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English" (Tan 17). This unnamed narrator yearns for a life in which she, and her children, can be “American” in both citizenship and language. All of the mothers in The Joy Luck Club have immigrated to America with this same goal in mind. However, the label of “American” cannot save their children from hardships, as the narrator suggests. The children still face struggles of their own, except they face struggle entirely separate from those of their parents. American life is not a life without pain, but instead a life with different pain. Further, Ying-ying feels trapped in China, in her old life, but, “Saint took me to America, where I lived in houses smaller than the one in the country...I raised a daughter, watching her from another shore. I accepted her American ways. With all these things, I did not care. I had no spirit” (Tan 251). Even though Ying-ting has everything she wanted: new clothes, a new house, a new life, she is still unhappy because the American Dream breaks her spirit. She expects a grand life …show more content…
The language barrier exemplifies the idea of a disconnect between their two cultures, and the American Dream is proved to be a harsher reality than imagined. For millions of immigrants, the United States promises a fresh start, away from the troubles of their cultural home. But for many, assimilation proves difficult, isolating many from both their communities, leaving them in a world separate from the one they left, but not fully in the one they hope to join.
Works Cited
Henrickson, Shu-Huei. "An overview of The Joy Luck Club." Literature Resource Center, Gale, 2018. Literature Resource Center, Accessed 1 May 2018.
Michael, Magali Cornier. "Choosing Hope and Remaking Kinship: Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Jeffrey W. Hunter, vol. 257, Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center,. Accessed 1 May 2018. Originally published in New Visions of Community in Contemporary American Fiction: Tan, Kingsolver, Castillo, Morrison, University of Iowa Press, 2006, pp. 39-71.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1989.
Xu, Ben. "Memory and the ethnic self: reading Amy Tan's 'The Joy Luck Club.' (Special Issue: Varieties of Ethnic Criticism)." MELUS, vol. 19, no. 1, 1994, p. 3+. Literature Resource Center, Accessed 1 May
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