The Search for Identity in The Joy Luck Club When Chinese immigrants enter the United States of America, it is evident from the beginning that they find themselves in a world very different from their homeland. Faced with a dominant culture that often acts and thinks in ways contrary to their previous lives, immigrants find themselves on the difficult path of trying to become Americans. Chinese immigrants often find themselves caught between two worlds: the old world of structured, traditional, and didactic China and the new world of mobile, young, and prosperous America. They look longingly to China longing for a simpler life, but they look to the United States as a land of opportunity and freedom that they did not know in China. Because that's why they came to America in the first place, to provide for their children and themselves what they couldn't in China. To do this, of course, they must face the challenge of assimilation. Learning the language, acquiring an education, owning property, etc. they are all ways to capture the American dream. However, this presents a problem for Chinese immigrants because, in the process of assimilation, they lose part of their Chinese culture. This is especially true for the children of Chinese immigrants: second-generation Chinese Americans. Second-generation Chinese Americans face a special challenge. Their parents endured the struggle to come to this country...... middle of document...... October 19%.: 256,257.Shear, Walter. "Generational differences and diaspora". Spring Criticism 1993: 193-199. Tan, Amy. The Joy and Luck Club. Vintage contemporaries. New York: A division of Random House, Inc., 199 1.Tsai, Shan-Shan Henry. The Chinese Experience in America. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986.Xu, Ben. "Memory and the Ethnic Self. Reading Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." Meleus. Spring 1994: 3 -16.Yung, Judy. Chinese Women in America: A Pictorial History. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1989. (many found in Gale Literary Database t)v-(http://www.galenet.com/servlet/GLD/hits?c...n=10&1=d&NA=Amy +Tan=&The+Joy+-Fortuna+Club)