In earlier times, when the term ethnicity was not yet part of the common vocabulary, the label ‘American’ was often exclusively attributed to whites, considering them to be the dominant race (Sollors 1997, 1).
By comparison, Americans of Asian descent account for no more than 4.4 percent (U.S. Census Bureau indicates that 73.9 percent of the total population are white (U.S. The 2006 American Community Survey by the U.S. Until this day, white Americans hold the majority in the United States. Americanness and Ethnicity 2.1 Defining the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ Finally, chapter 4 will summarize the main findings and elaborate on the image of American society which Gish Jen depicts in her novel. Here, I will consider their motives for switching (or not switching, respectively), and discuss the difficulties resulting from these decisions. Chapter 3 will be concerned with various characters from the novel who either do or do not switch between cultures and/or ethnicities. Ethnic self-fashioning is depicted as a crucial step towards identity formation: While Mona and friends mostly conceive of their cultural cross-dressings as enrichments to their lives, “non-crossers” frequently appear as being narrow-minded and one-dimensional. Throughout the novel, the reader comes across various degrees of cultural crossings: the most prominent example being Mona, there are also less evident crossings of other characters that involve cosmetic surgery, a change of clothes, or a dietary change toward culturally-bound foods. I will argue that Mona in the Promised Land with its recurring theme of cultural cross-dressing fits perfectly into the setting of the late 1960s and 1970s and humorously suggests what many (ethnic) adolescents must have experienced during these times. Here, I will refer to scholars such as Werner Sollors and Herbert Gans, who have made significant contributions to the field of ethnic studies. Chapter 2 approaches the concepts of ethnicity and Americanness as well as several issues related to these terms. Accordingly, Mona and other characters in the novel engage in discovering numerous aspects of their ethnic identities. As Sollors recalls, “ethnicity truly was in vogue in the 1970s” (1968, 21). This self-granted freedom of cultural choice seems to stem from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the “dawn of ethnic awareness”, which also happens to be the dawn of Mona’s adolescence (Jen 3). While Ralph and Helen Chang had to struggle with racial barriers during the 1950s and early 1960s and wish to be respected as assimilated self-made Americans, their daughter Mona embraces the idea that “American means being whatever you want”, putting individualism first (Jen 49). Both ‘Chang-kee’ and ‘Changowitz’ indicate an affiliation with different cultures at the same time, which is precisely what Jen’s novel deals with. Although in fact it is part of Jen’s first novel Typical American (1991), the ‘Chang-kee’ pun is also interesting with regards to the sequel Mona in the Promised Land: Here, Ralph’s and Helen’s daughter Mona is given the nickname ‘Changowitz’, a blending of Chang and the common Jewish name ending ‘-witz’. ‘Yankee’) society and their awareness of being “racially different and, therefore, un-American” (Lee 47). As Chinese immigrants to the United States, Ralph and Helen Chang used to call themselves the ‘Chang-kees’, indicating both their desire to be fully accepted into American (i.e. However, crossing ethnic boundaries often evokes negative reactions: When Jen’s teenage protagonist Mona converts to Judaism, her parents do not exactly approve of this decision.
Switching between different cultures, as depicted in Gish Jen’s novel Mona in the Promised Land, seems to be the most natural thing to do.
2.3 Symbolic Ethnicity in Mona in the Promised LandĢ.5 Consent and Descent in Mona in the Promised Landģ.2 ‘Crossers’ in Mona in the Promised Landģ.3 ‘Non-Crossers’ in Mona in the Promised Land