CHINESE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE AND “THE MELTING POT”
CHINESE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE AND “THE MELTING POT”

Summary/Abstract: The history of the United States is unmistakably the history of immigrants, and the make-up of American society is living proof of the immigration history of this country. With diverse ethnic groups expanding and becoming more numerous and better represented it is obvious that their literature waits to be fully discovered and appreciated. The aim of this paper is to prove that immigrants do not necessarily lose their ethnic identity living in the United States; rather they frequently tend to preserve their original customs and beliefs, sometimes adapting them to their new environment. They want to retain their own cultural and ethnic heritage as well as their personal identity while assimilating themselves into new environments and standards of living. The Chinese-American experience presented in literature is particularly interesting as Chinese-Americans are culturally and physically distinct from the dominant white community.

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