Homemaking in Asian American Women's Writing: Chuang Hua, Bharati Mukherjee and Meena Alexander Performing the Diasporic Home
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Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 6-1-2009 Homemaking in Asian American Women's Writing: Chuang Hua, Bharati Mukherjee and Meena Alexander Performing the Diasporic Home Yan Jiang Western Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Jiang, Yan, "Homemaking in Asian American Women's Writing: Chuang Hua, Bharati Mukherjee and Meena Alexander Performing the Diasporic Home" (2009). Dissertations. 686. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/686 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HOMEMAKING IN ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN'S WRITING: CHUANG HUA, BHARATI MUKHERJEE AND MEENA ALEXANDER PERFORMING THE DIASPORIC HOME by Yan Jiang A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Advisor: Dr. Katherine Joslin, Ph.D. Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan June 2009 HOMEMAKING IN ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN'S WRITING: CHUANG HUA, BHARATI MUKHERJEE AND MEENA ALEXANDER PERFORMING THE DIASPORIC HOME Yan Jiang, Ph.D. Western Michigan University, 2009 This dissertation examines how homemaking, as depicted in contemporary Asian American literature, reflects the bigger issue of Asian diaspora and identity transformation. I analyze how Asian immigrants, especially Asian women, make the home in America in varying ways, seemingly following their ancestral pattern or the mainstream American model but eventually transcend both. Following Judith Butler, I suggest that Asian immigrants' homemaking is performative. In this study, I look to the ideas of cultural identification and identity formation as a foundation for contemporary definitions of the diasporic home and contend that far from being a static mimicking of their former homes, Asian migrants' homemaking is actually a dynamic process that comprises continual anxiety in relation to identity performance and transformation. Employing the framework of Butler's performativity theory, each chapter explores the shifting conceptions of the home in Asian American literature of the latter half of the twentieth century. I examine how authors such as Chuang Hua, Bharati Mukherjee and Meena Alexander, after 1965, represent immigrant homemaking that transcends nationalism for survival and success in the host country. This method demonstrates how performances of the home, as depicted by these women writers, require a redefinition of diasporic homemaking to include attributes hitherto under-explored in the literature, namely the complex and performative features of the home. Drawing on Asian American studies, diaspora scholarship and Butler's performativity theory, my dissertation proffers a fresh approach to Asian American texts that dismantles easy connections between homemaking and fixed identities and suggests a significant methodology for analyzing immigrant narratives. Copyright by Yan Jiang 2009 UMI Number: 3364677 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform 3364677 Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank many people without whose help and support this project would not have been possible. First I would express thanks to my committee members for their encouragement and guidance. I want to thank Dr. Nic Witschi and Dr. Ying Zeng for their early insights, suggestions and research support. Dr. Todd Kuchta was a careful reader and good critic. I thank him for his valuable suggestions for my chapters. As for my advisor Dr. Katherine Joslin, I am grateful that I had a chance to work with her during my Ph.D. studies. She has listened to me, encouraged me and shared the pleasure in my progress. Her suggestions and criticism have inspired me on so many levels. My appreciation also goes out to the folks at Western Michigan University who helped and supported me a lot during my graduate education in literature: Dr. Meg DupuiSj Dr. Allen Webb, Dr. Gwen Tarbox, Dr. Jana Schulman, Rebecca Beech, Bethlynn Sanders and Michelle Hruska. I want to express special thanks to my family. Although they did not read my project, their care, love, encouragement meant so much to me. For all this, I am grateful. I would also like to thank my friends Freda and Tom for helping and encouraging me over the process. Yan Jiang ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . ii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION . 1 The Diasporic Home in Cultural Studies and Literary Criticism 7 The Concept of Diaspora 18 The Concept of Home 20 The Theory of Performativity and the Diasporic Home 22 Chapter introductions 26 Endnotes 22 II. THE "AUTHENTIC" HOME IN CHUANG HUA'S CROSSINGS 33 Diaspora and Cultural Identity 38 Ethnic Pride and The Unmarked Chineseness in the Novel 41 The Chinese Home as Model in Diaspora 51 Impact of Western Culture on the Chinese Family 70 James's Marriage and the Disintegration of the Chinese Home 75 Reconciliation and Identity Transformation 81 Homecoming and the Changed Home Structure 93 Endnotes 98 iii Table of Contents - Continued CHAPTER III. PERFORMING (UN)DESIRABLE HOMES IN BHARATI MMKHERJEE'S JASMINE 103 Bharati Mukherjee: An immigrant Writer Who Lets Go of Her Roots ... ...:. 105 Jasmine and Performances of (Un)Desirable Homes 117 Leaving the Ancestral Home Behind. 120 Performing the Mainstream American Home 141 Endnotes 160 TV. WRITING AS DWELLING: MEENA ALEXANDER'S FAULT LINES 164 A Nowhere Creature: Alexander's Diasporic Sensibility 166 Identity Politics in Alexander's Writing 173 Performing the Diasporic Home in Fault Lines 182 Writing Oneself into Being, or Searching for a Home in Writing .... 183 Homemaking via Writing and in Writing: A Performative Stance.... 195 Performing the Genre of Autobiography 206 Endnotes 214 V. CONCLUSION . : 217 BIBLIOGRAPHY 225 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Asian diaspora is a broad classification because it involves the dispersal of Asian populations from different cultures and nations, at different times, and for different reasons.1 However, as these people make their trips across various borders, they all experience cultural interaction and a desire to make their home in the new land. Homemaking acts, therefore, are what they share after the diasporic journey. As a part of the global migration, Asian migrants have shown manners of homemaking that are both similar to and different from those of other migrants. Like diasporas from other continents, Asian migrants have left their homes and home countries for self-realization of some sort. Yet unlike the diasporic Jews who had lost a homeland and the later generations had to "re-conquer" before calling it home again, many Asian migrants have left behind an original home that is available to them. Also, unlike the African diaspora whose journeys are usually a political critique of the racism they have experienced during the diaspora, the home of Asian migrants does not necessarily have such a political dimension (although many of them have been victims of racial prejudice or immigration exclusion policies in some of the host countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia). Accordingly, Asian migrants' identity, as is reflected in the various ways they construct and "perform" their homes, is complex and refuses essentialism. 1 2 This project centers on how Asian migrants make their home in the United States, a common destination of their diasporic journeys. My analysis of narratives by three contemporary Asian American women writers, Chuang Hua, Bharati Mukherjee and Meena Alexander, shows that Asian migrants vary in the manners of homemaking, ranging from reconstructing the original home to following the mainstream American pattern, from mixing the Asian and American models to creating a spiritual home in writing due to the sense of homelessness. These individuals' diverse acts add up to a general picture of Asian migrants' homemaking and contribute to our understanding of the complexity of Asian diaspora and identity transformation. While depicting the immigrants' various manners of home fashioning, these literary texts display a commonality: a performative feature of the diasporic home. Therefore, I find Butler's theory of gender performativity a useful tool for my discussion. Although gender identity and diasporic homemaking (and thereby cultural identity) are two distinct categories, the complex and flexible home patterns that immigrants have made in America are analogous to the flexibility and constructed nature of gender identities. Thus I believe Butler's theory of performativity can shed new light on immigrant homemaking and diaspora studies.