History/GWS 249 Reading Guide
Asian American Immigrant Women
- Judy Yung, Chapter 3: “First Steps: The Second Generation, 1920s,” in Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (1995), 106-125. (e-reserve)
Text:
- Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976), “No Name Woman,” “White Tigers.”
Questions:
- How does Yung describe the expectations and the experiences of second-generation Chinese-American women between 1900 and 1940? How does she describe the cultural dilemma they faced?
- What distinction does Yung draw between acculturation and assimilation?
- In particular, what cultural conflicts and identity dilemmas did second-generation Chinese-American face in their homes? What three patterns of response to the conflict over gender roles does Yung describe?
- With what issues is Kingston grappling, of what she was trying to make sense? In recounting, retelling, revising her mother’s stories, what is Kingston trying to achieve?
- What message did her Chinese heritage—as her mother presented it—offer Kingston about women, and about their options?
- What guidance did her mother give her about girlhood, and growing into womanhood?
