Eng and Han's essay addresses the association of assimilation with melancholia in Asian Americans. Assimilation, they describe involves, "adopting a set of dominant norms and ideals—whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class family values—often foreclosed to them" (Eng & Han 670). This process of achieving an unattainable state of being causes melancholia, a "mourning without end", that passes down from the first immigrant generation to posterity.
Kingston's story is one of cultural clashes. She has to contend with being Chinese yet distant from many of the traditional customs and values that had been her parents while also being American yet regarded as a foreigner by her appearance and isolation within the Chinese diaspora microcosm. By being a part of both identities yet not being exclusive or truly accepted in either, Kingston lives as a ghost, a term used by the Chinese to describe non-Chinese, for she is both not fully accepted as Chinese and not fully accepted as American.
Language is a fluid and dynamic mode of communication as well as an identifier for its speakers. Dialects respect shared identities of its users, stemming from shared histories as well as geographic realities that isolates and diversifies the language.
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