Çin Amerikan yazınında kimliğin göstergesi ve kuşaklararası aile kavgalarının işareti olarak yiyecek

This study explores the dynamics of the identity construction process in two works of Chinese American fiction - Mei Ng's Eating Chinese Food Naked (1998) and David Wong Louie's The Barbarians Are Coming (2000) - in the light of cultural food theories, focusing specifically on the views of Claude Fischler and Deborah Lupton. The thesis discusses the contrasting food choices and eating habits of the first and second generation Chinese Americans reporting the intergenerational conflicts born by the adherence to the American and/or ethnic dietary regimen and their disruptive effect on the family unit. The study argues that the food and foodways of Chinese Americans guard the culturally defined Chinese culinary regime against the workings of white dietary practices, but the interaction with social variables such as class and sexuality challenges this reserved attitude towards the white palate. The analyses of the two novels demonstrate that once the desire for eating is no more tempered by the natural tendencies of the ethnic culinary culture, the appetite gets personalized through nonconforming food practices based on the changing socio-economic position and sexual orientation of the characters.