Politics of Oppression and Restoration of Subjectivity in Genny Lim’s Bitter Cane

Abstract

Genny Lim's play Bitter Cane deals with the life of early Chinese immigrant cane cutters working at a Kahuku sugarcane plantation in Hawaii in 1882. Full of racial and sexual oppression, this play shows that Chinese immigrant workers are entrapped in Kahuku plantation by the ensnaring fatal traps of prostitution and opium. Due to racism against them, there was a severe imbalance between Chinese men and women in Hawaii. Men pay enormous amounts of money to satisfy their oppressed sexuality, and this causes them to be trapped in the plantation, and finally to lose their self identities. With all these pessimistic images of captivity and oppression, however, this play still gives the audience the strong impressions of optimistic reconciliation, rebirth, and returning home, which means the restoration of the self identity. Lau Hing and Wing, the two main characters, recover their lost father-son relationship, and Lau Hing's bones return back home through his son, Wing. Li-Tai also reunites with Lau Hing through symbolic marriage with him at the time of her physical death. Therefore, with all the oppressive shackles of reality, Bitter Cane can be seen as a play of restoring subjectivity and overcoming the oppressions that the Chinese immigrant workers have to face in Kahuku plantation.