Chinese Americans and the Borderland Experience on Golden Mountain: The Development of a Chinese American Identity in the Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

In The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston tells the story of her immigrant family and their efforts to rise above their working-class status in America, which optimistic Chinese regard as the Golden Mountain. The Hongs\u27 experience is not unlike that of other immigrants who come to America to escape hardship in their homeland and hope to live the American Dream. The road to American success has numerous obstacles, and immigrants encounter many conflicts on their journey. One conflict relates to their cultural identities. Gloria Anzaldúa uses the word borderland to refer to the meeting of two cultures, and she defines the borderland as a place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape (n.p.). While Anzaldua\u27s discussion focuses on the borderland encountered by Mexican Americans, she believes that many share this painful experience