The Concept of "Foreigner-Within": Exploring the Diasporic Dilemma in Maxine: Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

Abstract

Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts explores the theme of identity friction and the dilemma of hyphenated immigrants among Chinese Americans in the nation of nationsμ (Behdad, p. 113). Kingston demonstrates the discourse of exclusion with the Chinese Americans who have settled in America due to the phenomenon known as the Gold Rushμ in America. This paper will lay emphasis on Kingston˙s own aunt, Moon Orchid who travels to America after thirty years to meet her husband and claim her position as his wife. The poignant rejection by her husband, who has totally become an "American" by creating an American identity for himself, rejects his Chinese wife after getting an American wife. The novel speaks of the disappointments of the Chinese American migration from China, the Gold Mountainμ of America. Kingston has worked hard and struggled to give meaning and voice to the marginalised community to the women like her mother and aunts. This paper will delve into the concept of "foreigner-within" (Lowe, p.5) among the Chinese American and the dilemma of identity in the foreign land. It will also explore the complex ways in which immigrants understand the notions of 'identity' and 'home in the adopted land. The racial and cultural differences experienced by the Chinese Americans in a "forgetful nation" (Behdad, p. xiii) is a painful experience. Kingston narrates all these difficult times through a new narrative form that she has discovered and that is the "talk-stories". Through the talk-stories she narrates stories of oppressions that ultimately becomes stories of defiance and through this device the dilemma of identity and the concept of "foreigner-within" will be articulated in this paper.