Question on The Joy Luck Club?

Question

Which character in the Joy Luck Club faces the biggest cultural clash between China and America? What would be an example?

Thank you for any help

Answer 1

Lindo experiences regret over losing some of her Chinese identity by living so long in America (she is treated like a tourist on a visit to China), however she expresses concern that Waverly's American upbringing has caused a barrier between them.

Lindo perhaps experiences the largest crisis of cultural identity of any of the characters. She regrets having wanted to give Waverly both American circumstances and a Chinese character, stating that the two can never successfully combine. She thinks that from the moment she gave Waverly an American name—she named her after the street where the family lived—she has allowed her daughter to become too American, and consequently contributed to the barrier that separates them. At the same time, however, she recognizes her own American characteristics and knows that she is no longer “fully Chinese”: during her recent visit to China, people recognized her as a tourist. Distressed by this, Lindo wonders what she has lost by the alteration. Her strategies of concealing inner powers and knowledge may be related to her ability to maintain what Waverly characterizes as a type of “two-facedness”—an ability to switch between a “Chinese” and an “American” face depending on whom she is with.