Comparing The Identities Of The Amir Family In The Joy Luck Club

Although it is often perceived as a controversial subject, immigration has admittedly shaped the United States both culturally and socially, hence the country’s nickname of “melting pot”. The personas of 1st generation immigrants who traveled here themselves, in addition to those of their 2nd generation children, have clashed with Western culture for hundreds of years. In The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan, four Chinese immigrant families are members of their own club, and share their mother (1st generation) and daughter (2nd generation) experiences along the way. The fictional lives of these characters are inspired by the lives of immigrants that take up 14% of the U.S. population today. Both similarities and differences can be observed

Both the St. Clair family in The Joy Luck Club and the Amir family have 1st generation family members that have difficulty speaking English. A 1st generation Amir states, “If I don’t know something in English my children will help me”, showing that English fluency may not come easily to them due to their quick transition to the United States. In “The Voice from the Wall” in The Joy Luck Club, Lena St. Clair (the daughter of Ying-Ying St. Clair) must translate her mother for her father due to the language barrier presented in their home. When Ying-Ying loses her baby, she claims the baby’s “head was open” in Chinese, but Lena translates this as, “She says she hopes the baby is very happy on the other side” for her father. Taken from her perspective, “I could not tell my father what she had said” (Tan, 112). These lines show the great extent in which language barriers and lack of English fluency in 1st generation family members affected the St. Clairs, and how it resulted in miscommunications. Unlike the families in The Joy Luck Club, however, the 1st generation member(s) of the Amir family made an effort to blend in with American communities and refrained from staying in the same racial group; the interview states, “I try to blend in with the community by interacting, sharing my background, and learning new things”

The real-life and fictional families both firmly hold onto traditional values and educational values, in addition to experiencing similar language barriers in their household. They simultaneously differ through education level, cultural/societal exploration, and 2nd generation open-mindedness, however. Overall, the life experiences, memories, and struggles of the families in The Joy Luck Club serve as a positive and genuine example of the lives of immigrants and their families in the United States while putting a face and character on numbers and