Cultural Identity on Chinese Diaspora in Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls

Abstract

CULTURAL IDENTITY ON CHINESE DIASPORA IN LISA’S SEE SHANGHAI GIRLS; Destya Dwi Ramadani; 160110101014; 51 pages, English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Jember This research analyses the construction of cultural identity experienced by the characters in the novel Shanghai Girls. Shanghai Girls tells about Chinese women, Pearl and May, who is later moved from Shanghai to America for arranged marriages. They gradually experience immigrant problems of homesickness and nostalgia, the difference between old culture and new one. This research purposes to discover the struggle of the characters living in the host country and the way they face it. Stuart Hall’s cultural identity theory is applied in conducting this research. This research is qualitative research as the data is in the form of a collection of words and sentences. The primary data are taken from Shanghai Girls through dialogues and narrative events while the secondary data as the complement are taken from books, journal, and internet resources. The collected data presents the characters’ way to survive in host country and environment takes a big role in their identity formation. The results of this research show each character has different experiences to survive in living in the host country. At first coming, Pearl and May experience homesickness and nostalgia. They cannot get used living in America that contrasts with their lives before so that they still shadowed by their past lives. Pearl has struggled to adjust with traditional Chinese culture she used to ignore. As the representation of longing home, she starts preserving traditional Chinese culture in her daily life in America while embracing her western way of thinking. Meanwhile, May brings back her past life as beautiful and modern woman who adores the western way of life. As American-born Chinese, Joy is raised by both cultures as the negotiation to remain acceptable in the family but she goes her daily life as American where she currently lives in. It can be concluded that identity is unstable and always in proses which is influenced by environment and community where they live in. Lisa See as the author wants people know how tough being immigrant in America at the time, especially Chinese women who come for arranged marriages. Through the characters, she conveys the difference results in each character which is influenced by environment. See also positions Chinese as her dominant idea in writing this story even though the novel has been set on not only in China.