Immigrant Self-representation: Chinese American Immigrant Writers Ha Jin and Yiyun Li in the International Context

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Wang, Edlie
Chu, Patricia

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In this thesis, I talk about how first-generation Chinese immigrant writers contribute to Chinese American literature through their unique representations of immigrant life. Due to language barriers and other historical reasons, a majority of representations of immigrant life in Chinese American literature have been written by the descendants of immigrants, second-generation writers. Now, there are more Chinese immigrant writers who write immigrant stories in America. To some extent, immigrant writers’ representation of immigrant life is a “self-representation,” since they are writing their own stories. By comparing immigrant writers’ works to those from second-generation writers, I argue that Ha Jin and Yiyun Li are immigrant writers who have contributed to Chinese American literature in three aspects: genre, theme, and language.

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