The many faces of hybridity in Chinese/American fiction of the 1990

R n·ista de E.'t11clios Norteaml.'ricmws. 11. º 9 ( 2003 ), pp. 23 - 3H «THE MANY FACES OF HYBRIDITY IN CHINESE/AMERICAN FICTION OF THE 1990 s» 1 PILAR CUDER DOMÍNGUEZ SONIA V ! LLEGAS LóPEZ Uni ve rsidad de Huelva Pcople keep asking wherc 1 come from Says my son. Troub le is I'm ameri <.:an on the inside And oriental on the outside. No Kai Turn that oulsi<le in TH!S is what American looks like.2 l. INTRODUCTION: CULTURAL AND/OR IlIOLOGICAL HYBRIDS Like oth er so-titlled « et hnic li t eratures.» co n temporary Chinese/Ame r ica n fi c ti on focalizcs thc qu cstion of ct hnic id en tity. A num bcr of re cent novels highlight the extent to whi ch Chinese/ Ame rican subjects havc to positi on and define th em selves 1. Thrnug hout this cs,ay. a n<l dcs pite w111111on prac tin: favori ng the hyphen to n amc writers of non-whitc Eumpcan ongrn. wc have adopt cd thc slash. We subscribe to D 'Alfonso's ideas. following Tamb urri. that «(!Jhe slash unifies the two tcrms instead of semanl!cally dividing them .... [it] creates an acti ve confrontation that kccps the mcaning of the h:rms vihrnnt. both in <l ivi <lu ally and c.:o n jo intly» Cl9). 2. Mitsuyc Yamadn. « Mirro r Mirrnr» in Camp No/e.\' wul Other Writi11gs (New Brunswick: Rutgcrs UP. 1998: o ri gina ll y publishcd in 1976). Although writtcn by a Ja panese/Amcrican. this poem addrcsscs the fcelings of :di Asian/A me ricans. 24 Pilar Cculer Dm11Íl11{ae~ y Sonia Vil/e¡: as Lúpez as regards either thc mainstream or their distinctive tradition. In a way. they seem to be trying to givc an answer to the qucstions Bhabha voiced in «DisserniNation»: The discourse of the minority reveals the insu rrn ountab lc am bivalence that structures the equivoca/ moverncnt of historical time. How does one encounter the pastas an anteriority that continually introduces an otherness or alte ri ty into the present? How does onc then narrate the present as a form of contcmporaneity that is neither punctual nor synchronous'? (The Locat io11 (~f Culture 157) The anxiety connected to this «double consciousness» is sornctimes convcyed through a mixcd-race character. whose hiological blend of races comes to stand for the cultural in-betweenness of the subjcct. This is the case in three novels published in the mid-l 990s: Aimée E. Liu 's Pace ( 1994 ), Amy Tan 's The Hundred Secret Senses ( 1995), and Shawn Wong's American Knee.1 · ( 1995). In this paper, we would like to hring the insights of post-colonial thcory, and more specifically from Bhabha's notion of hybrídity, to bcar on our reading of these nove Is. In additíon, we would Jike to argue that their conceptualization of the cultural hybrid and the biological mixed-race person may contribute sorne answers to the question of identity among Chinese/ Americans. It may be argued that the deploymcnt of post-colonial theory would be inadequate for this purposc bccausc the situation of the Chincsc in the United States is not properly «Colonial».1 Nevertheless, it is an incscapable fact that during the l 9th century China suffered thc cffccts of the imperialistic policies of severa! powers (Great Britain. France, the United States, Japan, etc. ). and this in turn was the cause of a stcady stream of Chinese immigrants to Amcrica. As a result, like other ethnic groups in the latt cr half of our century, Ch inese/Americans carne to see themselves «as having bccn exploited in the intercsts of dominan! groups within [thc nation]. Their situation has becn intcrprctcd as one of interna! colonialism» (Richmond 297). Thus, thougb not strictly a post-colonial society, the features which define thc Chincse communi ty in the United States can be cxplained from thc pcrspective of post-colonial theory (Childs and Williams 10, 13). Moreover, post-colonial criticism has posi re d, in rccent tim es, quest ions regarding racial, ethnic, ancl cultural identity that are crucial to the analysis of minority writin g. Critics have pointed out how «discourses of 'c i vi lization,' 'nature,' ancl 'race," carne to support and rcinforce each other. no t covertly but hlatantly. during 3. On thc ongoing debate surrounding the oppununity of applying post-colonial thcory in U.S. studies in general terms. see for exam plc Manzanas and Bcnito's « El canon literario y la enseñan1.a de la literatura norteamericana» (96). Too. Caporale has rc hearsed the de velopm ent uf prn,t -colonial studies in the U.S. in «La teoría literaria dentro de la críti ca cultural» (406 -27). A-,, concerns th c study of U. S. ethnic lítcralurcs. theorists suc h as Ann JuCille have maintained the us efu lness of post co lonial concepts: «What wc IAfrican/Americans] seek is a precolonial connection: what we theurize is a postcolonial condition; what wc º rc stuck with is a perennial colonial contradiction» («Discourse and Dat Course: Pnstcoloniality anti Afrncentricity,, 121 ). 71ie Mam· Faces ofH yhrid itr i11 Ch111ese/A111erica11 Ficlim1 ofthe /99 0s 25 lhe period of co lo ni al expansion» (C hi lds and Williams 189). Like other theoretical schools, post-colonia li sm in recent times h as emphasised th e discoursc of race as one that. acknowledged or not, undcrlies ali social positi ons and is thcrcfore always at work (Childs and Williams 192). Simil ar l y, post-colonial critic s' ex.plorations of the workings and effects of di asp ora and migratio n have co ntribuled to map out the fabric of multicultural societies. Accordingly. Stuart Hall s ta tes th e significance of diaspora as a determin ant factor in th e configuration of identity, a cu ltural construct which, in the contex.t of rnulticu lt ural cnvironments. he <li ssociates from purit y, re latin g it instead to heterogencity: «Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing thcmsclves ancw, through transformation and difference» (402). Making speci fic refercn cc to the African diaspora. Loomba argu es that multicultural enc ounters givc risc to a model of society that disavows any stri ct configuration of racial purity. Loomba goes on to discuss th e "íl uidity" of (post)colonial identities, arnong wh ich thc h ybrid s ubject stands out, and suggests the unavoidability of "be com i ng " in thc co nstrm:t io n of ínt er-cultural identities (1 78). Thus. her arguments co me to problematize those binary oppositions which dom ínate Western thought, and especially cultural relations. pro po sing instcad a modcl of syncretism and hybridity which combines and cl cstabilises those previous. clear-cut categories. Above a li , it has fallen to Homi K. Bhabha to ca ll for ... thc n ee<l to think beyond nam 1ti ves of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those momcnts or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural di ff ere n ccs. Th ese "in-be tween " s pace s p rov ide the te r ra in for elaborating strategies of selfüoo<l -s ingle or communal -that initiatc new signs of identity and innovative sites of co llaboration, and co ntestation, in th e act of <lefining the idea of socicty it self. (Tlle Lo catimi of Culture 1-2). Cen tral to this thcory of interstitial sp aces betwcen cultures is th e notion of the hyhrid. Hybri di za tion. dclined ge n era lly in cul tural tcrms as the qu a li ty of multiethnic, multi-lin gua l or multi-racial socie ti es , but often also as the socio-cultu ra l result of the biological intcrmingling of diff er en t raccs. is co mmon ly viewe <l in the cont ext of postco lonial studies as a «strength» rather than a weakne ss (Ashcroft. Griffiths. and Tiffin 183). Th e fig ur e of thc hybrid, as it co mprise s the best of two w orl<l s. challenges monolithic cultural repre se ntations, and su ggests a way out of binary ca tc gories. Si gnificantly. Bhabha thcorizes about the so cial ancl política! sta tus of thc hybrid. s tatin g that c ultural hy bridizati on c ntails the deferral of power from authoritarian positions towards more dcmocratic perspectives, and th e re-negotiation of he ge mon ic pr actices, thu s offering n ew alternatives to the in sc ription of the «hybrid» as cultural signifier: Such ncgotiation is neith er assimilation n or collaboration. It mak es possible th e emer ge nce of an «Ín terstitial» agen cy that rcfuses the binary representation of social antagonism. Hyhricl agencies find their voice in a dialec ti c that does not 26 P ilar Cuder D o111í 11 gue: y So11ia Vi/legas Lápe: seek cultural supremacy or sovereignty. Th ey deploy the partía! culture from which they emerge to con st ruct visions of commu n ity , and versions of hi s torie me mor y. that give n ar rative form to the minority position s they occupy: the outside of the inside: the part in th e whole. ( «Cultu re's In -Betwccn» 58) Follnw in g Fanon 's claim about the «doublencss» of the hybrid individual, at once unablc to ge t rid of the racial m ar kers s/he despises, and to embody wh it eness fully, Bhabha admits that this proeess of hyb rid accu lt uration will always remain ambivalenr (thc du al image of the hyb ri d pcrceived bo th as diff erent and the s am e) (Loomba 176). In his influential essay «Diss em iNation: Time , Narra ti ve and the Mar gins of the Modern Nation», Bhabha has explored to what an extent the Romantic notion of the nation-state as community founded on a narrative of common origins has given way nowadays to a nation «split within itself, ar ticulati ng the hetereogeneity of it s po pulation. Th e barred Nation lt /St!lf. a li enat ed from i ts eternal self -generation, becomes a liminal signifying space that is illfemally marked by the discourses of minoritics, the heterogeneous histories of contending peoples, antagonistic authorit ies and tense ln cations of cultural diff eren ce» (The Location of Culture 148). In encompassing th ese heterogeneous histories. the modern , plural nation has become a site of instability and arnbivalen ce . wh ieh ad mits uf excen tric sub ject positions. Bhabh a's theories are thcn of peculiar usefuln ess to the study of «et hni c literatures» in th e West. as he himse lf has proved by oftcn dra wing exam ples from African/American writing. This particular situation of dis-location, which recurs in othcr ethnic cornmunities as well, tu rns out to be problematic for those hybrid subj ec ts who li ve "in-between". In Hall 's terrns. hybrids will be in charge of «positioning» themsclves. and making cho ices in or d cr to define t he ir unstable cultural identities («Cultural ldentity and Di aspora» 395). The Chinese/American community currently cxists in such an intcrsti ti al s pa ce. Ha ving immigrated in the second half of the l 9th century, after seve ra] generations the Chinese/American commu nities feel torn betwecn a sense of tradition that weighs hcavily on their identity-building processes and the dift icultie s of curr en tly cnacting that difference. This is wh at Bh abha, putting Kriste va's ideas to a different use. has identified as the di cho tomy of «thc pro cess of identity co n st ituted by hist orica l scdim cn tation (the pedagogical); and thc loss of identity in the signifying proccss of cu l tural identificat ion (thc pc rfo rma tiv e)» (The Lo c ario11 of Cu ltur e 153). Thc implications of th is ambivalent pro ce ss are also detected by Hall, as he proposes the in ter play of past and pre se nt in the cre ation of plural identities: «F ar from being eterna lly fix ed in sorne esse ntialist p as t. [cul tu ra l identities] are subject to the continuous ·play" of history. cultur e, and power. Far from bein g grounded in mere 'recover y' of the past. which is waiting to be found and which, whcn found, will secure our sense of ourselves into cternity. identíti es are the namcs we give to different ways we are positioned by. and pos it ion ourselves within, thc narratives of the past» («Cultural Identity and Dia spo ra» 394 ). Furthermore. Bhabha 's no tion of th e hybrid cou ld a ppl y to the Chinese/American in othcr ways as well. as we notcd a bo ve. In analyzing the gradual The M"ny Face" of Hyhridity i11 Clzi11ese ! Amerirn11 Ficti o11 of tlz e J 990s 27 process of global h yb ridization of thc pos tcolon ial subject in m ult icul tural environments. biology traits and cultural referents seem to overlap, and miscegenation coul<l th en be understood as the biological counte rpart of cultural hybridity. Mi xe<lrace subjects have to move in just such in-betwcen sp aces , since they are determin ed by skin co l or an<l are not allowed to bcncfit from the privileges that white citizens enjoy.4 Moreovcr , the hi sto ry of t he Chinese in the United S tat es prevented endogamous unions and encouraged cross-racial li aisons, since th e Chinese Exclusion Act of 1 882 cau scd a se ri ous imbalancc of t he sexes -most of the early «Sojourners» having c om e alone. leaving their wives behindthat c ould not be corrected until fairly recently. This resulted in a prop or tionally high rate of i nt er -marriagc. often with white women, in the opening dccadcs of our century, as thc fierce anti-Asian feeling of the l 9th century started to fade away (Sowell 1 33- 54 ). What's more, outmaniages have r cma ined a fact to this date: only in th e l 980 s it is es timated that 31 .5% of ali Chincse marriages in the U. S. involved non-Chinesc partners (Tong 186). Thus, the theme of miscegena ri on is neither a rarity nor hi storica lly irre levant. On the c ontrar y, it is clos ely related ro the expcr ie n ces of Chines e/ Americans. and thercfore it cannot come as a surprise that a number of contempora ry authors use mixed race as the vehicle to explore their anxie ti es on identity.' 2. CHINESE/AMERICAN FICTION OFTHE 1990sAND THE HYBRID In h is e xpl or atio n of the repres e ntation of iden t ity in (po st )co loni al co mmu ni ties. Bhabha comes up with the co ncept of « mimi cry », which he desc ri bes as a co mmon strategy among colonial sub jects. These people in-be tween. Bhabha adm its. will try to overco me differen ce by imitating the ethnic discourse of the ma instream: [T]hc discourse of mimicry is constructcd around an ambivalence; in arder to be effectivc. mi mic ry must co ntinua ll y p roduce its slippage, its cxcess, its diftercnce ... [M)imicry emerges as the rcpr esc ntation of a differen ce th at is it self a proccss of disavowal. Mimi cry is , thus the sign of a double articulation: a co mplcx strategy of reform, reg ul ation and discipline, which «appropriates» thc Other as it visualizes power. (The Location of Culture X6) 4. The c on cc pt 11f hybri <lit y has bccn put ro goo <l u se in ot h er ethnic American Literatures. remarka bl y by Gloria Anzaldúa 's <l efinition of border identitie" an d «the n ew me,, tiza» cons cio usness. 5. Sim:e w~ will he tackling ho th aspccts of the idea of hyhridity (cu lt ural and h10 Iogical). for rh e sake of dar ity wc will. from nuw un. rcfcr to Chin ese/America ns to signa! the cultural app roac h. and 10 Amerasians whcn we a<lopt a biol ogi cal out look. 28 Pi lar C 11d er Domí11gue ~ y Sonia Vi/lega. ,· L ópe : In the exam ples of Chinese/American fi ction we propase, their authors single out the efforts of Chinese/American and Amerasian characters to rcne gotiate the «s pa ces of slippage» found in the interstices of their mixed identity. The characters portrayed in the se novels are always positioncd in the boundaries bct wce n ethnic slereotypes (in lhe coordinates of the «almost the same but not quite»), a nd usually strive to de fine themselv es in opposition to thc racial fcalures they seem to despis e. By so doing, they finally come to rcf\ect on the characteristics that make one Ameri can versus tho se which make one Americanised. Cynthia S. Wong has claimed that a similar defence mech a ni sm is adopted by Chinese/Americans in or der to co pe with their hybrid identity. Th ey will embody th e mo<lel of the «racial shadow», Wong s ug gests, in ord er to <lissociate themselves from the Asian markers wilh which white American socie ty usually associates Chinese/Americans. As a result of this devaluation of Asian va lues, thesc subjects w ill cr ea re a fake «racial» doppelgiin ¡.¡e r to whom they wi ll assign the cthnic f ea tures they abhor. Furthermore, as Wong points out. the construction of the «racial shadow» or ethnic other alwa ys springs from a n ee <l to co mpa se a plura l se lf: «The dou bl e is symptomatic of a crisis in sel facceptance and self -knowledge: part of the self, denied re cognition by the conscious ego. emerges as an ex terna! figure exerting a hold over the protagonist that secms disproportionate to provocation or inex plica ble by everyday logic» (Reading 82). In th is respect, th is cultural pro duct could be fai thfully applied to the experience of the h yb rid subjecl. In th e proce ss of bccoming th ese individuals enact, th ey tend to dissociate themselves from the racial signifiers whi ch cannot be assimilat ed to the mainstr ea m culture. ln practice, Amerasian characters will realize that it is easier to expungc Asian features. and more co mpl ex , however, to accommodate to white standar ds (Wong. Reading 99). Amy Tan 's The Hundr ed Se cret Se n ses ( 1995) se ts out to questi on the processcs of constructing one 's own idc ntity in the co nte xt of mu lticultural and multiracial societies. lt tells the story of Olivia Y ee and her half -sister Kwan·s life in common. Kwan, born to Olivia 's father from an earlicr marriage before he emigrat ed to th e Unitcd States. only joins her American family after his death. The novel spans nearly thirty years. from Olivia's childhood an<l adolcscencc, marked by h er sist er's obsession with China ami her privilegcd co ntact with t hc wor ld of Yin, to h er thi11i es and h er marriage to Simon. Ali along, Olivia' s efforts co n centratc on obviating Kwan ·s presen ce and her overwhclming attenti ons. an<l tryin g to get back to «no rmal». that is, to a ss imilate h er hybrid identity to a white Am er ican conduct. Significantly, Olivia has to cope with Kwan's constan! intert·erence, wi th her mysterious sto ri es about the dead, an<l with her adv ic c on h er rnincd marriage. Moreov er , Tan's novel focalizcs the rclationship between two h yb ri d individuals of Asian dcscent, Olivia and Simon, and shows how only by Olivi a's reconciliation with her Chinese past, and by valuing her hybridity against white American standards, will she be able to take the reins of her life, and acccpt an cqual-to-equal exchange with her husband. Rai se d in Sa n Francisco . and daughter to a C hine se fath er and a white American mother , as a ch ild Olivia is in trouble to place Kwan in an identifiablc ethnic and cultural ca tegory. In spitc of her half-Chinesc ascendancy. she ca nnot help fantasi zi ng about the sister she has never mct: The Manr Fau:s of Hyhridity in Clzi11ese/Amairnn Fiction ofrlu: 1990s 29 Mom had said that a big sister was a bigger version of myself, swect a nd beautiful, only more Chinese. and able to help me do ali kinds of fun things. So I imagined not a sistcr but another me, and older self whn danccd and wore slinky clothes, who had a sad but fascinating life, like a slant-eyed version of Nathalie Wood in West Side Storr, which I saw when I was five. (HSS7) Unfortunately, once she arrives the real Kwan seems to represen! a rather different version of China for Olivia, whose previous contact with Asianness had been Chine se take-out, «like cvery one else» (HSS 6), by what shc means like any other typical American non-Chinese family. Never before had she questioned her identity. With Kwan at home , however, she gradually rcalises the differences between their respect ive cultural backgrounds. The figure of Kwan, standing for «Chinesencss» in cxcess -her difficulties to speak English fluently. her continued references to China. her belief in the parallel reality of Yinconstitutes thc role model she abhors but unconsciously entices her : her «racial shadow» in Wong's terminology. From that crucial moment onwards. Olivia starts to analyse her hybridity. having to decide, for example, what part of herself she had inherited through her father's genes (HSS 18). Also significantly. she continually attempts to define herself in opposition to h er half-sister who, in turn, seems to find every point of likeness in th em: «In spite of ali our obvious diffcrences, K wan thinks she and I are exactly alike. As she sees it. we 're conn ec ted by a cosmic Chinese umbilical cord that's given us the same inborn traits. personal motives, fate, and luck» (HSS 19). Whereas Kwan seems to rcly on the possibility of sharing cultural traits among individuals with simil ar biolngical features. Olivia does no t believe in that concept of cultural inheritance. Little by little, t ho ugh. she comes to admit their commona lities. To achieve a proper balance between her American sense of self and her newly acquired Asían background will not be an casy task for the hybrid. since there spring serious cultural contradictions: «Privately 1 [OliviaJ r ep laced her notions of ghosts and the World of Yin with Vatican-endorsed saints and a hereafter that ran 011 the merit system» (HSS 45). Actually. however, the difference between «pure» (Chinese or non- Chinese) and hybrid su bj ects líes in the fact that the ]alter may subscribe to more th an one set of distinctive culturally-specific markers. It was precisely their mixed race that brought Olivia and Simon together at the beginning. Since that moment. he has stood for her racial counterpart, for the «Othe r ha Jf,, she was looking for: I noticed him right away because like me he h ada name that didn't fit with his Asían features. Eurasian students weren 't as common then as th ey are now, and as I stared at him, I had the sense I was seeing my mate doppelganger. .. Simon didn 't look like any particular race. He was a perfectly balanced blend, half Hawaiian-Chinese, half Anglo, a fusion of different racial genes and not a dilution. (HSS 59) 30 Pilar Cucler D 11m Í11 f? t1e ~ y So11ia Vi/legas Lópe ~ De spite their hybridity in common. what Tan calls h ere «fusion» of different raccs, Olivia will have to ligh t Simon 's reluctance to forget he r previous girlfrie nd El za, a white American of Polish Jew deseen!. who even afte r death competes with Olivia for Simon 's love. Olivia is made to beli cve that Elza rcpresents a model of per fcction she co uld ne ve r match. although her recurrent wish is to undermine other people 's ex p ec tations. as when she e hose h er step-father's halian s umam e to go with her Chin es<! features. As s he argues against Simo n and Elza 's defens e of determinism: « 'J don 't think that's true, that stuff about inherited nature, as if we ' re d es tincd to devclop in to a certain kind of person without c hoice .... I mean, how do we define natural'! Who's to say what's natural and what's not'?'» (HSS 64). At first sight Olivia scems to find the notion of a biologically-deterrnined identity greatly suspet:t. But under the surface , these counter-arguments are part of an array of wcapons whi ch Olivia employs in order to r eje ct a «C hineseness» that secretly embarrasses her. and thus in order to be able to assimilate to the white norm with an ca sy mind. Tan makcs this strategy more evide nt by m ea ns of a s ubplot th at in t he novel comes to mi rror the f eat ures and the plight of the prot ago nist. In this sub plot , narrate d by Nunumu. Kwan's counterpart . Mi ss Bann er and Yiban John s on fo nction as alter egos for Olivia and Si m on re sp ectively. Both sub pl ot cha ra cters se cm to belong to the world of Yin. and are d esc ribed as hybrid . too . The s on of a Chinese mother and an Americ an father . Yiban is said to be a « go-between», «a lizard.» even «Stained both ways » (HSS 29). Howc ver. he is in variably associated to his Ch i ncsc dcst:ent. a nd is forced to behav e a ccord ingly . Mi ss Banner also shares Chi nese and non-Ch in ese features in her own way: «[S ]he co uld se n se the world like a Chin esc per son. But it was always this six th way, her American se nse of impo rtan ce, that later ca used trouble s bctwcen us» (HSS 4.3). Both half-blood charactcrs partakc of a troubled iclentity that makcs them r eflec t on their uncer ta in origins. and wonder about thcir scnse of bel onging. as Yiban does re ga rding his ascendancy: Look at me. 1 was born to a dead mo ther. so I was born to no one. I have been both Chincsc and foreign, this mak es me neither. J bcl onged to everyone. so I belong to no one. I hada father to whom 1 am not even one-half his son. Now I have a master who considers me a de bt . Tell me. whom do I belong to? What co untry'? What p eo ple? What family? (HSS 1 3.3 ) Much in the sarne way as Yiban , Olivia is at pains to a ccept her «d oublcncss ». In the chapter «Name Chang e» she wc i ghs up the pro s and co ns of c hanging h er surname. Yee, which after ali had not rea ll y belonged to her father . who had u sed s omeone else 's passport to get in to the United States. She reasons thus: « As 1 think more about my name, I re a li ze J've n ever had any s ort of identity that suited me» (HSS 140-41 ). In the process of elucidating her composite nature, Olivia elicits sorne of the vital questions co ncerning the is sue of hybridity lately de bate d in th e American scene: what is to be ethnic; to what an extent can hybrids Th1' Many Fa ces of Hybridity i11 Chi11ese/Americw1 Fictimz t!f tlze / 990s 31 balance biol ogy and culture: and wh ether it is necessary to choose onc of their halvc s an d discard the other. In thc light of this debate, Olivia 's bro ther K evin ' u mm ariz es t hc situation as follows: «"It's hip to be et hn ic" "Bu t wear ing a Chin ese badgc doesn 't r c::ally get yo u any bo nu s po ints", Kcvin says. "Man, th cy' re cutt ing A'ians ou t, not making any more roo m for th em'\, (H SS 141 ). His conclusion se ems to be tha t. although having a recognizable ct hnic dist inctiven ess scems to be ap pe aling nowadays . thcrc are fcwer opportunities for Asians in the United Stat es than for other minorities. As happens elsewhcre in Amy Tan 's fiction,6 afte r a failed attempl to lind their place in their homeland. an eventual journcy to China prop i tiatc::s a reconciliation with ht::r two halves as wcll as with her husband. Only the rc can Olivia unite h er two dispara te halvcs: I gazc at the rn ountains a nd realize why Changmian seems so famili ar. It\ thc sctting fnr K wan \ storics, t he ones that fil ter in to my drcams. Th ere they are: the archways. the cassia trees, thc high walls of the Ghost Merchant's House. the hilb leading to Thistle Mountain. And being he r e. 1 fecl as if the membrane scparating the two ha lves of my lifc has finally becn shed. ( 185) The journey to China provides thc happy ending for the novel and for the lovc story betwcen Olivia and Simon as well. Only in t he co u nt ry of her anccstors can the protagonist accept her «doubleness» und achicvc a reco ncilia ti on with her husband. Although in thcir mixed race both characters comp l cment each other. this was not c:: nough to warranl their successful purtnership. Olivia·s ncw leaming to cope wi th the Chineseness that her sister Kwan represents in excess now allows her to overcome her infcriority compkx aboul her mixed bl ood and her supposed lack of a distinctive identity. E ven though Kwan epitomises a li the ethn ic fcaturcs that Olivia has tried to eradicate in hcrsel f. und though shc turncd her youn ger sister's lile as u child and a young adult into a nightmare. h er appearanc:e and influcnc:c is cnicial in the novel, since she bridges tiic:: gap between Oliviu's desire to assimilate ami her nec::d to come to terms with t hr. part of hcrsclf which is Ch incse. Ali in ali. and despite the newly-acquired proximit y. there are sorne <lifferences between the half-sisters that cunnot be obviated: «W hy question the world. indeed? Becausc I'm not Chinese like Kwan. To me. yin isn 't yang. and yang isn't yin. 1 cun't accept two c:ontradictory stories as thc whole trnth» (223). L ike The H1mdred Secret Senses, Shawn Wo n g's American Knees ( 1995) focalizes t he interaction between Asians, to the point t hat it reads as a bi opsy of such a rclationship an d of the negotiations that thc partners hm c to undertake in or d er to make it work. Shawn Wong's choice of su ch partners is vcry telling. On the one hand is Raymond Ding. a third-generation Chinese/Ameri can who is experi enc ing a deep i <l entity crisis. On t he oth er is Amerusian Aurora Crune, who has alwuys t aken her ó. The only exci:pt 1on is Tan\ latest novel t<> date, The B011 es e11e1"s Da11gl11er (2001 J. 38 Pilar Cuder Domíngue ::: y Sonia Vi/l egas L ópez Manzanas. Ana, and Jesús Benito. «El canon literario y la enseñanza de la li teratura norteamericana.» Atlantis 23.1 (2001 ): 91 -104. Miguel Alfonso, Ri cardo , ed. Historia de la teoría y la crítica literarias en Estados Unido s. Madrid: Editorial Ve rbum, 2001. Richmond. Anthony H. «Ethnic Nationalism and Po st-Industrialism.» Hu tchinson and Sm ith 289-300. Sowell. Thomas. Ethnic America: A History. New York: Basic Books. 1981. Stanley, Sandra Kumamoto, ed. Other Sisterlwods: Lirerary Th eo ry a nd U. S. Women of Color. Urbana: U of Illinois P. 1998. Tan, Amy. The Hu11tlred Secret Sen.ses. London: Flamingo, 1995. -. Th e Bonesetter' s Daughter. New York: G. P. Putnam 's Sons , 2001. Tong. Benson. The Chinese Americans. Westport: Greenwood. 2000. Wong, Cynthia S. «Ethnicizing Gener: An Exploration of Sexua lity as Sign in Chinese lmmigrant Literature.>> Geok-Ling and Ling 111-29. -. Reading Asim1 American Literature: From Necessity to Extrmw~ance. Princeton: Princeton UP. 1993. Wong, Shawn. American K11ees . Ncw York: Simon and Schuster. 1995. Yamada, Mitsuye. Camp Notes mui Orher Writinxs. New Brunswick : Rutgers UP, 1998.