Immigrants' problems of identity in America: A study in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior

Abstract

Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior explores the hardships of searching identity in America as a Chinese immigrant through the conflict between first generation and second generation immigrants. The novel tells their story and their efforts to rise above their working class status in America while they feel isolated in different surroundings. Kingston's experience is not unlike that of other immigrants who come to America to escape hardship in their homeland and hope to live the American Dream. The analysis shows that the road to American success has numerous obstacles, and immigrants encounter many of them on their journey. One conflict relates to their cultural identities when America becomes the meeting of two cultures, which, for immigrants, becomes a place of contradictions and hatred, anger and exploitation.