The Joy Luck Club Analysis

In American society, it is often difficult for immigrants to find their place in the vast sea of varying cultures an immigrant is thrown into. The stark difference between an immigrant’s home country and a new, foreign world often leaves a person adrift, unable to firmly pronounce for him or herself a singular identity due to pressures to conform to their new location. Oftentimes, individuals float along surrounded by other people who are experiencing similar situations. They create their own microcosms of culture, as exemplified by the ghettos and other historically minority-dominated communities across America. Author Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club notes the struggles that minorities face in such geographical areas and depicts them through

Amy Tan emphasizes the idea that the racial struggles that are experienced within a family are universal among generations when she explains the similarities in immigrant women, “All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way,” (Tan 215). Amy Tan develops that both mothers and daughters combat the same feelings of isolation, hopelessness, and confusion while, “living biculturally in a society that insists on a homogenous identity,” (Chen 1). Any immigrant mother or daughter individually, at the core, endures the same struggles and same issues as another pair; the two must fight to balance both the ideals and lifestyle of their original country while trying to adapt to the ideals of their new home. As found in Studies in the Literary Imagination, “‘daughters and mothers are each other,’ … [there is] interchangeability both within and between generations,” (Adams 1). Within a single culture or ethnic group, the same fundamental struggles prevail, which creates a sense of cultural empathy, existent across multiple generations of an immigrant community and this concurrence is in itself an identity. In order to overcome these common struggles, an immigrant must develop and establish a strong association with his or her

The similarities between generations allow for immigrants to create a unified identity as a culture while residing in a different nation. Both a mother and daughter’s identities are reliant on one another, and strengthening this bond through shared memories allows for a mother or daughter to establish a relatable and strong set of racial values. An immigrant faces many obstacles when coming to a new country. Oftentimes, an immigrant struggles to establish an identity, as they feel they are caught in the middle of two cultures- one of their new home and ancestors, and one of their retrospective abode. In order to resolve this matter, one must bolster their sense of self as a person of a racial minority. A strong sense of self can act as a map, guiding an immigrant through the troubled waters of his or her identity