An Analysis of Chinese American Literature from the Perspective of Cultural Translation

The rise and development of Chinese-American literature is closely related to the socio-cultural context in which the subject of its creation resides. Because the works contain a lot of Chinese elements, the writing of Chinese American literature often entails translation from the perspective of cultural studies. This kind of translation does not refer to the simple conversion on linguistic level, but the adaptation of Chinese culture, Chinese history and Chinese experience, which is a kind of invisible cultural translation. Chinese American writers have applied Chinese traditional culture to their works and achieved success in the target audience, which provides effective solutions and rich experience for the dissemination of traditional Chinese culture. This paper intends to study Chinese American literature from the perspective of cultural translations, and its enlightenment on the dissemination of traditional Chinese culture overseas.

Transnationalism in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club

Chinese American literature is commonly interpreted as the narrative of the living experiences of Chinese Americans. Under the past nation-state research paradigm, Chinese American literature critics both in China and America are preoccupied with the “assimilation” of immigrants and their descendants in Chinese American literature texts, they argue that Chinese culture is the barrier for the immigrants to be fully assimilated into the mainstream society. But putting Chinese American literature under the context of globalization, these arguments seem inaccurate and out of date. This article examines the transnational practices and emotional attachments in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club to show that the identity in these two works are neither American nor Chinese, but transnational. Thus, Chinese American literature is not the writing of Chinese Americans’ Americanness, but a celebration of their transnationalism.

Constructing “The Third Space” On Eat a Bowl of Tea

Identity construction is always the motif of Chinese American literature. Many critical theories are adopted to analyze this issue. Homi K. Bhabha’s “the third space” is one of them. It refers to a place where it is not a combination of different positions, rather, it is “neither the One nor the Other but something else besides”. Eat a Bowl of Tea by Chinese American writer Louis Chu presents such Third Space. This paper first discusses the homogeneous old Chinatown culture which is patriarchal and impotent in Eat a Bowl of Tea and explains how Mei Oi causes the cultural split from this homogeneous culture by her independence and adultery. And then this paper discusses how the old Chinatown undergoes the cultural negotiation and finally realize its transformation. This paper points out that in this process of transformation, the characters construct their Third Space, which offers them hybrid identity and the sense of belonging.

A Visual Asian American Diaspora: Belle Yang’s Hannah is My Name (2004) and Guene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese (2006)

<p>The current study aims at theorizing the question of identity within the framework of postcolonial studies in two visual narratives: Belle Yang’s <em>Hannah is My Name</em> (2004) and Guene Luen Yang’s <em>American Born Chinese</em> (2006). Asian American studies have recently interrogated identity marking a shift from ethnic nationalism to recognition of multiplicity. The study also seeks to counter <em>Orientalist</em> stereotypes in American literature through the analysis and examination of postcolonial Asian American Diaspora to highlight a number of questions: 1) How is the identity of the Asian immigrant’s hybrid visually constructed? 2) How can Asian American visuals be addressed in non-white children’s literature? 3) What nurtures the transnational imaginations of the authors/illustrators in question? 4) What are the ramifications of transnational perspectives on Asian American narratives? 5) What are the nature of belonging and citizenship? The questions are a vehicle to investigate the cultural and ethnic politics of Chinese American literature and to explore new forms of self-identification in American literary discourse. They also yield rich insights into how to practice <em>multiculturalism</em>. What draws the visual narratives in question together is their postcolonial theme of reformulated identity to unsettle dichotomies within Asian American community. Furthermore, the present study explores semiotic systems in terms of image syntax, gestural, spatial and iconic signs to examine the relation between the <em>denotative</em> context of the narrative text and the <em>connotation</em> of the visual text that creates <em>polysemous</em> illustrations and indefinite meaning-making.</p>