earticle

영어

Globalized modern society requires the recognition of the transnational paradigm, that is to say, the horizontal equal regard for all existences in the world. As one of the most representative modern American writers, Gish Jen has tried to describe the Chinese immigrant experience in the U.S. based on this transnational paradigm. The nativist vision on American identity has defined Americans only as whites, as manifested in the 1924 Immigration Act. However, Jen has criticized this, and shown her own vision of the ideal aspects of America as a family-like unit comprising various racial and cultural backgrounds. Typical American focuses on Ralph Chang’s family, middle-class Chinese immigrants, who have deteriorated in the process of Americanization. They misunderstood the way to true Americanness as materialistic pursuit of wealth. Consequently, they were deliberately to ignore their traditional Chinese moral and ethical standards to become Typical American. A case in point is Ralph’s participation in managing a franchise chicken restaurant with Grover. Ralph even gives up his tenured professorship which had been his ideal from childhood on. However, by the end of the novel, all of Ralph’s family members can achieve the synthetic balance between their Chinese ancestral inheritance and American culture to create a new and valuable culture. As we enter the modern transnational era, it is necessary for us to reexamine the true concept of nation and nationalism and try to make efforts for real communication and for shared benefits among nations. This kind of transnational paradigm we can find in Typical American.