Immigrants In The Woman Warrior

Since the early days of the United States, immigration has been a recurring issue. In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston serves as an example of the experiences had by Chinese immigrants in the 20th century. She faced many hardships that people who have established themselves do not, such as terrible working condition, segregation, and alienation because of Americans’ false understandings of what Chinese immigrants are really like. Some argue that immigration is what has gotten the country to where it is today, while others say that the US would be better without them. Today, a major issue that has been brought to the forefront of the collective conscience of the American people is that of Mexican immigration thanks to the recent presidential

race. Many adopt anti-immigrant attitudes similar to that of the ideology of nativism (NPR), which is defined as “the policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants,”(Oxford) from the 20th century, negatively affecting the experiences of Mexican immigrants. Across different eras, immigrants tend to get the short end of the socioeconomic stick and have a hard time integrating into American life because in general, the US has been wary of newcomers and in some cases fear that they might take away from what current citizens have.
One of the first objectives of immigrants is that of a source of income: a job to sustain themselves and possibly a family.

It may be hard to do this; new immigrants lack many of the prerequisites, and more importantly, they face discrimination in the workplace. This leaves them two options. The first is that they could attempt to receive aid from others. The other option, according to the Population Reference Bureau, is to take much less appealing jobs. Because of this, “The occupational fatality rate for Hispanics has been the highest among all groups in the United States for 15 years,” and foreign-born workers’ fatality rates have increased by eight percent from 1992 to 2005 (PRB). Safer jobs often come with a more probing interview and screening process that, for one reason or another, turn down immigrants at a much higher rate, even if they have may have more to give to the job specifically at hand. Even with a business’s best interests being in profit and production, they scrutinize based on status to hire “American.” A similar scenario can be seen in The Woman Warrior. Hong Kingston reveals that her family used to work at a laundromat, a more dangerous and undesirable job than it

seems on the surface. Brave Orchid warns Moon Orchid of how easy it is to accidentally burn herself by leaning on or touching a boiler or anything that was hot. The burns were not the only danger, because “the temperature inside reached one hundred and eleven degrees”(Hong Kingston, 137). To the average American today, this would seem nearly unbearable. Hong Kingston’s family was only able to do this exhausting work because of the fact that no one would hire a new Chinese immigrant. Brave Orchid, a college-educated medical professional (Hong Kingston, 57-58), could not find suitable employment anywhere, but Moon Orchid’s estranged husband was a successful brain surgeon, “‘Perhaps we can give you the name of another doctor,’ said this woman, who was her sister-in-law. ‘This doctor is a brain surgeon and doesn’t work with the flu’”(Hong Kingston, 148). The difference between these two doctors is that even though they are both Chinese, the former has not given up on her Chinese culture and language while the latter has become “Americanized” by learning the new language fluently, marrying a white wife, and forgetting his life in China except for a bit of money each month to his “old” wife. Only then was he able to have the life he studied for because he was accepted by whites, who had money to pay for his services and made him successful.
Discrimination is not the only obstacle faced by Hispanic and Chinese immigrants. In a country that prides itself on progress toward equality, one would assume that minorities and immigrants would receive a good access to education and services to pursue a better career and life, but this is not the case. Chicago, one of the US’ most populated cities, is one of the most diverse yet one of the most segregated cities, despite it being years after the end of legal segregation. This is not without consequence to minorities because segregation is “often accompanied by income, education and occupational segregation,” (Chicago Tribune) which is another contributing factor to the unfortunate immigrant experience as a whole. While whites saw an income growth of 52 percent from 1990 to 2012, Hispanics only saw 15 percent, a massive disparity as a result. This clearly highlights a problem; different ethnic groups are not comfortable coexisting in the same neighborhoods because of negative stereotypes, preconceived notions and more. These things lead to people in power giving all the societal resources to a select few groups-primarily white-which minority immigrants cannot access without major compromises in their lifestyle. These experiences were the prospects for many Chinese newcomers to the US in the early to mid 20th century. It was hard to break out of this bubble of a risky and undesirable life for the same reasons. Hong Kingston shows that Chinese immigrants are segregated from other groups. Moon Orchid is so convinced by her surroundings that she believes all of the United States is like Chinatown when she says, “So this is the United States...I’m glad to see the Americans talk like us”(Hong Kingston, 136). This shows the isolation of the Chinese immigrants from the rest of California, and by extension the US. Such a language shift to Chinatown prevents people from wanting to invest resources and time into a place that they have no control over and do not understand fully. This leads to poverty and is another reason why Hong Kingston’s family was relatively unsuccessful. Americans would rather, in general, protect themselves first above any immigrants that make a concerted effort to live in the US with others. To add to this, Hong Kingston routinely refers to people of other races, animals, and the dead that she encounters or talks about as “ghosts.” By doing this, she, throughout her youth, has considered these people or things as an outsider to her world that occasionally pop into existence and disappear as a result of her mother’s many Chinese talk-stories blurring into real life. Some not only have segregated neighborhoods, but segregated minds as well that lead to a breakdown in communication and relations with other races. These things are a necessary part of integration into the larger American society.
While it is important to recognize the strictly tangible aspects of immigrants’ lives such as their careers and segregation, what perhaps does the most damage to Mexican and Chinese immigrants are the stereotypes that they are labelled with by many racist Americans who do not care to get to know people for who they really are.

After all, being rejected by society for something that cannot be changed can hit the core of one’s being. In a work published by the American Humor Studies Association, Sterling Eisiminger of Clemson University compiles ethnic slurs that different ethnicities have been called, and analyzes them to discover the underlying thought behind them. Mexicans have been thought of as, “anti-social, anti-intellectual, unable to postpone gratification, violent, passive, fatalistic, dirty, romantic, and untrustworthy,” (Eisiminger, 9-10) as well as other things of the sort. Chinese were seen in America as “inscrutable, materialistic, garrulous, cowardly” (Eisiminger, 11). This paints a clear picture of what they are seen as among the plenty of more intolerant people in the country. Of course, these, like all stereotypes, are either misleading or downright untrue. In fact, both Mexican and Chinese Americans strongly value family in general, which clashes directly with the accusations presented earlier (VOA News). Hong Kingston write about the talk-story that her mother tells her such as the tale of Fa Mu Lan that is meant to tell children-particularly women-that

they were powerful if they train and work hard, “We could be heroines, swordswomen” (Hong Kingston, 19). This is the opposite of inscrutable; even if concept of the story may be foreign, it taught children discipline, dedication, and shows that Chinese culture values a strong family and instilling good character. The question then becomes why some believe that Mexican and Chinese immigrants are so bad to begin with. Although part of the reason may be downright unprovoked hatred, there may be a more complex-albeit still unacceptable-reason. Consider the nature of the slurs listed before; they are negative traits that no one in society would wish to have. If these things are seen as bad and that only other groups, then the insults thrown at these people may actually be a warning to not be like immigrants. People who take these slurs seriously may be more pleasant people among their own race as a result, while others suffer the consequences. This discrimination cannot be healthy in the long run, and may be a side effect of a larger issue of the American family. If they must resort to this to do even a bit of the child-rearing, then perhaps they may, in fact be the ones who are flawed. They are likely confused or find it hard to believe it when they hear of tightly knit and loving immigrant families who, like established Americans’ ancestors, came for opportunity for themselves and their families.
The winds of time have not eroded the nativism that has been burrowed deep into American culture; immigrants still to this day are irrationally feared and misunderstood, which has worsened their overall livelihood. When immigrants, Mexican or Chinese, first try to gain a foothold in looking for a job, they are blindsided by discrimination that prevents them from getting jobs that Americans believe they are taking en masse. Even worse, segregation prevents integration and success because resources are not granted to immigrants as a result of prioritizing white citizens over others even if both have the same goals and aspirations. Lastly, false stereotypes and slurs targeted at minority immigrant groups harms their reputation and morale; this shows the hypocrisy in the criticism of them, because Chinese and Mexican immigrants value family very much while some Americans rely on bringing others down to lazily teach people a lesson in what not to be like. As a nation of immigrants, America must unite and set aside differences if its citizens wish the country to be the land of opportunity for all people as they believe it to be.