The Formation of a Hybrid Identity

Categories: Arnold Spirit Jr Junior Sherman Alexie The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Essay, Pages 6 (1319 words)

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'The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events - a marriage or a last-minute rescue from death - but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death.” In Fay Weldon's opinion, a good writer does not always need to end his story with the most joyous ending in order to satisfy his readers.

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Both The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian and The Joy Luck Club leave a lasting impression on the reader because, although the resolution to each novel is not necessarily a completely happy one, a moral reconciliation is reached in the end as they go through the process of identity formation.

In the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, as Junior navigates this transition with great humor, friendship, and innocence, he takes integral steps in embracing his two selves as Junior at the rez, and Arnold in Reardan.

In the Joy Luck Club, Jing-Mei Woo finds a spiritual resolution by fulfilling her mother's destiny of reuniting with her two long-lost sisters. Both of the characters were able to reconcile with their complex identities, as Jin-mei pass the language and cultural barriers that exist between her and her mother- Suyuan, her perceptions of the Chinese culture as well as of her mother, who represent this culture, changes drastically, and as Junior come into realization of the interior factors that made up his identity.

Although, it takes quite some time for Jin-mei to come to this realization, ultimately, she recognizes the central place that her mother has had on shaping and influencing who she really is. After her mother’s death, Jin-mei finally realizes what her mother had wished for her: that she does not desire that Jin-mei to only follows the Chinese traditions, but to find a way to reconcile the two opposing cultures of the United States and traditional China. On the night of their New Year’s celebration, Jin-mei was faced with the degrading comments that were loudly told to her by Waverly and was humiliated in front of the others. As she reunites with her mother in the kitchen, Suyuan gives her a jade pendant, and calmly tells her daughter, “I wore this on my skin, so when you put it on your skin, then you know my meaning. This is your life’s importance” (Amy 208).

This suggests that Suyuan believes the necklace will transfer the love and confidence to her daughter. However, most importantly, she believes it will transfer the family legacy and heritage from mother to daughter. This jade pendant symbolizes the essence of Chinese culture, and by putting it on, Jin-mei carries the paramount responsibility of being the cultural conveyor of China. When Suyuan gives her the pendant, Jin-mei thinks that the present is meant only as a gesture of sympathy after her degrading dispute with Waverly. Jin-mei describes that at first, she did not like the pendant because, in her opinion, it was too large, too green, too garishly ornate, but since her mother’s death, she has come to realize its meaning. Once emphasizing only the cultural barriers between herself and her mother, the pendant has now become a symbol of maternal wisdom and affection that Jin-mei once misinterpreted for extreme superstition and criticism.

Jin-mei’s decision to travel to China clearly demonstrated that an intercultural self is in a state of being created, resulting in the possibility of a richly mixed identity rather than an identity of warring opposites. Having journeyed through China for a few days, June finally gets to see her sisters. Jin-mei has then filled bewilderment when she sees “no trace of [her] mother” (Amy 287). Yet they still look familiar” (Amy 288). Her father takes a picture of the three girls, and as they look at the picture, they can see very clearly that together they look like their mother. She realizes what makes them look so familiar goes beyond just the mere physical structure.

As her aunties would say, it lies deep in her blood and bones, like a carved testimony of their blood relations. June finally initiates her first steps to fully discover and appreciate her Chinese heritage. By traveling to her mother’s homeland, she is in the process of building a bridge through her narrative between modern America and traditional China. She gradually realizes the power and advantage of joining the strengths of two cultures-the culture of success and the culture of secrets and wisdoms-instead of being torn between deciding to embrace only one. In the end, despite the incomplete resolution, Jin-mei ultimately reach a spiritual reassessment as she reconciles some of the cultural, linguistic, and generational gaps, providing hope for the other mother-daughter pairs.

In the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Junior on the rez and Arnold at Reardan was able to reconcile with his bicultural identity, as he realizes that it’s the intricacy of his experiences that make up who he really is. The protagonist of Alexie’s novel, belonged in both places, with both peoples and both memories. Ultimately, Junior concludes that despite not being able to fit in any rubrics that was set by his people, Junior’s identity was determined from within himself and not from exterior factors. When Junior and his family are at the graveyard to clean the graves of his grandmother, Eugene, and Mary, he comes to the realization that he did not only belong to one tribe: “I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball player. And to the tribe of bookworms…And the tribe of boys who really missed their best friends. It was a huge realization.“(Alexie 210-211)

Through the struggles of loss and sorrow, through the underlying guilt of being a traitor, and through his victorious win at self-discovery, Junior, at last, saw himself in a much broader context of belonging that what his exterior identity could possibly convey. His hybrid identity—his sense of belonging, was shaped by what he enjoyed doing, by the loss that he shared with other, by pain, by happiness, and by choice. It was not until Junior got to know himself that he truly felt he deserved to belong, that his identity itself is a mixture of intricate pieces, that it is a hybrid identity.

As both Jin-mei and Junior mature, they come to the realization that their identity is entirely a function of two worlds that have made them, a world within the family that have shaped who they initially are, and the world outside the family that represent the new hopes and opportunities they can have. Jin- mei, who once forgot who she ethnically was as individuals, start showing cultural consciousness and even regret having neglected her Chinese cultural identity. She comes to learn to interpret her mothers’ narratives in ways that will eventually enable her to go beyond the limitations of cultures. Junior, who once was tied to the dichotomy of both his life as a Native American and his life as the only Indian kid at Reardan, has now come to acknowledge the broad context of his sense of belonging. He learns to break the ties of cultural expectations in order to achieve what he truly deserves. Thus, the journey of both characters has resulted in a new category of identity, where they learn to become a cultural interpreter and gradually transforms the experience of being torn between two cultures to the enriching experience of being able to flow between the cultures – a hybrid identity.