Cultural clash in The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan and The House on Mango Street and Women Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros

This study analyzed the theme of cultural clash in works of two authors, namely Amy Tan and Sandra Cisneros from a postmodernist and a Bildungsroman point of view. The two works of Tan are namely The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife and the works of Cisneros include The House on Mango Street and Women Hollering Creek. It was discovered that Tan´s demonstration of culture in her novels portray her real life when she grew up in the United States as a second-generation Chinese-American who had been brought up in American ways despite being genetically Chinese. Tan´s mother was a first-generation Chinese-American who tried to preserve Chinese ways while living under American circumstances. Due to the generational gap and differing cultural beliefs and customs, the mother was always in conflict with Tan. The two novels portray how a culture clash occurs between first-generation Chinese mothers who escaped to the United States during World War II and their Chinese daughters who have been brought in the postmodern American society. The mothers and their daughters eventually come to understand each other when both decide to appreciate American culture and Chinese culture equally. In Cisneros´ works, the theme of culture clash was also evident through the demonstration of Latino-American women. The works are typical of Chicana literature – The Woman Hollering Creek demonstrates a culture clash between Mexico and the United States through the experiences of a Mexican couple (the wife is the protagonist) that moves to the United States. The House on Mango Street is a typical Bildungsroman because the character struggles to establish her identity as Latino-American which she eventually does by becoming a writer. The theme of culture clash emerges from the protagonist´s struggle for self-definition. Keywords:Culture Clash, Identity, Chinese-American Literature, Chicanos Literature.