Gish Jen's Who's Irish characterization
Assimilation: Gish Jen
Assimilation is defined as people of different backgrounds coming to see themselves as part of a larger national family. Vast numbers of people from all over the world migrate to America to seek opportunity and happiness in a new nation. The immigrants often come with few possessions, little money, and a lack of basic knowledge of the language and culture. But these crafty humans manage to pave their way and thrive in their new environment. The mother from the short narrative “Who’s Irish?” did exactly that. She came over from China with her husband and started a successful Chinese food business to support and raise her family. Later her husband dies and she still faces hardships of assimilation. Gish Jen’s “Who’s Irish?” employs indirect characterization of the protagonist mother to employ her theme that assimilating and relating to a new culture is one of the hardest tasks immigrants might face.
First, the mother in the story firmly grips her Chinese values and this hinders her assimilation into the culture of the United States. The author uses the lines “Plain boiled food, plain boiled thinking. Even his name is plain boiled: John. Maybe because I grew up with black bean sauce and hoisin sauce and garlic sauce, I always feel something is missing when I talk to my son in law.” to illustrate the narrators intolerance and inability to understand other cultures. These character traits make it more difficult for the narrator to diffuse into another culture. She has difficulty accepting other cultures and believes the Chinese are best it is also employed in her quote “ I always thought that Irish people were like Chinese people, work so hard on the railroad, but now I know why the Chinese beat the Irish” . Because of her high regard for Chinese and distaste for all other ethnicities it is challenging for her to accept other cultures and assimilate into American society. This indirect characterization may tie in to the authors
Assimilation is defined as people of different backgrounds coming to see themselves as part of a larger national family. Vast numbers of people from all over the world migrate to America to seek opportunity and happiness in a new nation. The immigrants often come with few possessions, little money, and a lack of basic knowledge of the language and culture. But these crafty humans manage to pave their way and thrive in their new environment. The mother from the short narrative “Who’s Irish?” did exactly that. She came over from China with her husband and started a successful Chinese food business to support and raise her family. Later her husband dies and she still faces hardships of assimilation. Gish Jen’s “Who’s Irish?” employs indirect characterization of the protagonist mother to employ her theme that assimilating and relating to a new culture is one of the hardest tasks immigrants might face.
First, the mother in the story firmly grips her Chinese values and this hinders her assimilation into the culture of the United States. The author uses the lines “Plain boiled food, plain boiled thinking. Even his name is plain boiled: John. Maybe because I grew up with black bean sauce and hoisin sauce and garlic sauce, I always feel something is missing when I talk to my son in law.” to illustrate the narrators intolerance and inability to understand other cultures. These character traits make it more difficult for the narrator to diffuse into another culture. She has difficulty accepting other cultures and believes the Chinese are best it is also employed in her quote “ I always thought that Irish people were like Chinese people, work so hard on the railroad, but now I know why the Chinese beat the Irish” . Because of her high regard for Chinese and distaste for all other ethnicities it is challenging for her to accept other cultures and assimilate into American society. This indirect characterization may tie in to the authors