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Mediating Cultural Speed Breakers: A Cultural Reading of
Jean Kwok’s Girl in Translation
Sr. Rosily CL, M.Phil. & Dr. Cheryl-Ann Gerardine Shivan, Ph.D.
Courtesy: https://www.amazon.com
Abstract
This paper will explore Jean Kwok’s semi-autobiographical novel Girl in Translation that was published in the year 2010 along the lines of the second type of literary discourse since the novel’s preoccupation is with a Chinese mother-daughter’s mediation between Chinese cultural norms and the dominant culture of the host country, in this case, the United States of America, on their way to achieving success both with regard to integration and economic prosperity.
Keywords: Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation, Cultural Speed Breakers, Dominant culture, Ethnic hybridity, Struggle for identity
Jean Amato, in her introduction to her paper on “Relocating Notions of National and Ethnic Authenticity in Chinese American and Chinese Literary Theory through Nieh Hualing’s Overseas Chinese Novel, Mulberry and Peach” (1999) says that over the last three decades, “the study of Chinese American immigrant literature has proceeded in two separate geographically and historically determined directions. In the first, Chinese literary discourse, around overseas Chinese diasporic texts, has generally been preoccupied with themes of nostalgia, longing, and loyalty to a Chinese home land and culture. The second direction is concerned with the study and reception of Chinese immigrant texts in the United States where the methodology is mainly oriented towards domestic-centered representations of immigrant assimilation, the minority condition, and ethnic hybridity” (32).
A meeting of cultures inevitably occurs on immigration to another country and the receiving culture, most often the more dominant one, requires immigrants to adapt. For this to happen, the new arrivals would have to imbibe the aspects of the host culture to gain acceptance from the out-group. However, some might resist this in order to “emphasize the distinctive features of their own culture…” (Linton 1940: 513). Hence, acculturation, whether at the group or individual level is dependent on the degree to which people wish to maintain aspects of their original culture as well as the degree to which they want to maintain relationships with the outside groups (Sam and Berry, 2010). In the work under study, Chinese socio-historical factors intersect with American urban culture to shape the lives of the protagonists and the percentage of mixing that the protagonists permit themselves determines the extent to which they can be termed successful immigrants. The novel also provides scope to examine acculturation patterns in two different generations for during the process, and in line with Nauck’s (2008) findings, every group and every individual changes differently in spite of possessing the same cultural origin and living within the same acculturative space.
This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.
Sr. Rosily CL, M.Phil.
Principal, St. Joseph of Cluny H. S. S.
Airport Road
Puducherry - 605 008
rosilycluny70@gmail.com
Dr. Cheryl-Ann Gerardine Shivan, Ph.D.
Principal, Kasthurba College for Women
Villianur
Puducherry – 605110
shivancheryl@gmail.com
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