William Boelhower's Immigrant Autobiography

The Anthology, “American Autobiography: Retrospect and Prospect” by Paul John Eakin offers a collection of essays that focus on a major period in the history of American literature. The essays focus on diversity, identity and the varieties in the literature of American Autobiographies.
The chosen essay “Immigrant Autobiography: Questions of Definition and Approach” is written by Sau-Ling Cynthia Wong and has a more provocative point of view. She uses William Boelhower’s Immigrant Autobiography and explains how his work should be approached and how to define it.
In the first part of her essay Wong attempts to clarify the definition of the term immigrant autobiography. Right at the outset Wong argues that even though autobiography is a characteristically

genre in American literature autobiographies written by immigrants are not part of this genre and are subsumed under ethnic autobiographies. She also criticizes that Beolhower regards immigrant biographies as a genotype of American literate. Wong stresses that autobiographies by immigrants should take center stage in the study of American autobiography since, except for the Native Americans, all Americans are from foreign countries or have ancestor from “somewhere else”. She states that immigration was and continuous to be an essential part of America. Wong attempts to clarify the definition of American immigrant autobiography and she insists on differentiation between immigrant and ethnic autobiography, since Boelhower’s use of the term immigrant autobiography is misleading, because Beolhower does not distinct between foreign-born and American-born immigrants. She argues that the “Americanization” is perceived differently by both groups. They do not share the same expectation nor the same experience. The American-born already know what to expect from America without dreaming about the Promised Land, therefore their autobiographies may differ in many aspects.
In the second part of her essay and focuses especially on Chinese immigrant autobiography. She argues that Boelhower’s theory of immigrant autobiography depends on the idea that immigrants either challenge, celebrate or reject the American myth of a Puritan State. In her essay Wong gives examples on how “sponsored” immigrant autobiographies are and that Boelhower’s theory of a self-authorized and inward-looking immigrant autobiography is not correct. She argues that most of the China-centered autobiographies are rarely of real memories but colored by what writers feel might be interesting or attractive for the Anglo readers.
Wong criticism of Boelhower’s theories is reasonable. What Boelhower states as a universal paradigm of immigrant autobiography is implicitly Eurocentric. There is no universal paradigm for immigrants since every immigrant’s experience differ from another and so do their autobiographies. Also, his claim to regard immigrant autobiography as a part of the fiction genre is discriminating and displays the ignorance of many Americans now and then. Boelhower and his fellow citizen tend to forget that they are all American-born immigrants. Immigrant autobiographies are important for understanding differences between cultures and to open up the horizon. Wong’s essay is very complex written and without previous knowledge hard to understand but her provocative writing style is worthwhile reading.