Kingston and Chin

Chinese-American authors Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston pioneered Asian-American literature. They condemn each other’s work for differences in cultural interpretation and dispute their own and each other’s prescribed gender roles given by both Chinese and American society. Chin and Kingston have differing views on their Chinese culture; in addition to their conflict on culture they criticize the others work declaring it to be a misrepresentation of each other’s heritage.

They have opposing views on male and female roles in Chinese culture and do not agree on what it means to be a Chinese-American in modern society. These differences lead to their literary and verbal assaults. Each author claims that their individual narrative accurately represents the history of Chinese-Americans, and it is their obvious differences of opinion that has brought about contention between the two.

Being Chinese-American neither makes an individual strictly Chinese, nor strictly American; their cultural identification began to form in their very different upbringings. Chin experienced a more traditional Chinese childhood that reinforced prescribed male and female roles in the family unit; he was exposed to racial prejudices and widespread poverty. Kingston grew up in Stockton, California. Stockton proved to be more progressive and welcoming, although not without difficulty, Kinston’s all American childhood did produce some prejudice. Kingston’s childhood did not lend itself to the ethnocentrism that a strictly Chinatown childhood would. This upbringing is where their dislike for each other’s narrative has its roots.

Frank Chin, growing up specifically in Chinatown in San Francisco, experienced a very different set of cultural prejudices and bias...

... middle of paper ...

...ewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009.

Huntley, E. D. Maxine Hong Kingston: a critical companion. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. 2001.

Kim, Hyung-chan. Distinguished Asian Americans a biographical dictionary. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Madsen, Deborah L. "Chinese American Writers of the Real and the Fake: Authenticity and the Twin Traditions of Life Writing." Canadian Review Of American Studies 36, no. 3 (October 2006): 257-271. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed May 12, 2014).

Oishi, Eve. "The Asian American Fakeness Canon, 1972-2002." Aztlan 32, no. 1 (Spring2007 2007): 197-204. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed May 12, 2014).

Takaki, Ronald T. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.

Wei, William. The Asian American movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993