Browsing by Author "Korhan, Zeytune Fulya"

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Are the Chinese a "model minority"? or is this just a myth? why is this important for diversity and multiculturalism in the USA and a postethnic America?
(Kadir Has Üniversitesi, 2009) Korhan, Zeytune Fulya; Drabble, John
Asian Americans are called "model minorities" in the USA. This thesis will assess whether Chinese Americans are model minorities by examining traditional patriarchy, race, class position, gender and mixed cultural identity in the novels The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and Paper Daughter by M. Elaine Mar. It will examine if the model minority concept is a myth created by white Americans and why the question of whether the Chinese are a "model minority" is important for multiculturalism and diversity in the USA and a postethnic America. These two novels are about the lives of female Chinese immigrants, and their daughters who were born in the USA.The daughters become examples of the model minority at the end of both novels, but one of them thinks that the concept of the model minority is a myth. Whites take themselves to be the models, and the characteristics of the model minority are those that enable other ethnic cultures to assimilate into their culture, white Anglo-Saxon culture. This is the role the model minority plays in the myth of assimilation. In both of the novels, the second-generation immigrant daughters first assimilate into white Anglo Saxon culture, but they cannot be happy trying to be someone that they are not and they find their real identities, at the end of the novels, as Chinese Americans of mixed racial and cultural identities. If all the individuals can acquire mixed racial and cultural identities, then the differences between ethnic groups diminish and they understand each other's cultures better. Assimilation becomes a meaningless word when there are no big differences between ethnic groups. In assimilation, a person should change her habits, tastes, thoughts and behavior totally. But it does not have to be that way. She/He can be multicultural. But there is one problem. Whites do not want to be multicultural since they claim that this country is theirs. As David Hollinger writes, whites should accept that they are Euro-Americans, one of the ethnic groups and a part of the diversity, and that this country does not belong to them, but is a country formed by different ethnic groups and cultures coming together.Only then can there be optional ethnicity and America can go beyond multiculturalism to a postethnic America. For this to become true, all ethnic groups in the U.S. should accept that they formed a new ethnicity and culture called "American". In the novels, we see that the daughters call themselves Americans. This will enable all the individuals in America to live in peace, enjoying diversity instead of living in racism, hostility and violence.