Negotiating Chinese American Identity in Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone

Since the first Chinese immigrants arrived in 1820, more and more Chinese Americans have entered the American society, which reportedly have already accounted for 1.5% of the total population of the United States. Caught between the Chinese and American cultures, they inevitably need to face culture conflict. Bone (1993), Chinese American writer Fae Myenne Ng’s debut novel, demonstrates Chinese Americans’ painstaking search for their cultural identity, an on-going topic of interest in Asian American literature. This paper intends to explore, from the postcolonial perspective, the identity seeking of Chinese American immigrant Mah and American-born daughters as Leila, Ona and Nina in the novel. Among them, Leila successfully transcends the mode of duality antagonism in her choice between the American culture and Chinese culture and eventually achieves a hybrid identity as a Chinese American, echoing postcolonial theorist Bhabha’s advocate for hybridity in the multi-cultural environment.