Analyse af Gish Jens novelle 'Who's Irish'

The short story written by Gish Jen, is about an elderly Chinese woman, the narrator, living in the US, trying to help her family and especially her daughter to raise her granddaughter Sophie who is 3 years old. In the short story we follow the main characters development, and her time struggling to see Sophie grow up in the Irish culture, because she wishes to discipline her the way a proper Chinese girl is raised. The main character, is an 68 years old Chinese woman. She has earlier escaped from China with her deceased husband and her daughter Natalie to America. In the US she later managed to be self-supporting after she opened a Chinese restaurant with her husband. After she moved to the US, she got very judgmental, and had a hard time seeing the good things in people. She judges everyone and compare them to the Chinese values and standards. “I always thought Irish people are like Chinese people, work so hardon the railroad, but now I know why the Chinese beat the Irish” (p. 160, ll. 20-22). Here she clearly shows the prejudices she has against Irish people, and that, in her opinion, the Chinese people can’t get beaten by other cultures. In the story the prejudices start a conflict between the main character and her daughter, Sophie’s mother. “In China, daughter take care of mother. Here it is the other way around. Mother help daughter; mother ask, Anything else I can do? Otherwise daughter complain mother is not supportive. I tell daughter, We do not have this word in Chinese, supportive” (p. 162, ll. 1-4). Here it’s obvious that the narrator is struggling to become accustomed to the way American families works. Natalie expects her mother to interfere with her own way of discipline, and be there for her as much she can at the same time. But Natalie doesn’t respect the narrator’s culture, and has abandoned all her cultures and customs. The type of relationship they have, isn’t usual, because they both have different issues with each other. “I especially cannot understand my daughter’s husband John, who has no job but cannot take care of Sophie either. Because he is a man, he say, and that’s the end of the sentence.” (p. 161, ll. 35-37). The narrator looks down on her family, and especially her daughters husband, John, and his brothers because they’re unemployed and Irish. "I just happen to mention about the Shea family, an interesting fact: four brothers in the family, and not one of them work." (p. 161, ll. 8-10). Besides the fact that she looks down on them for being unemployed, she calls them all “plain-boiled thinkers” (p. 161, ll. 38), because she thinks they’re boring and plain, the exact opposite of Chinese people. The only person she likes and understand is her granddaughter Sophie. "Mixed children are supposed to be smart, and definitely my granddaughter Sophie is smart" (p. 160, ll. 1-2). She likes and care about her, and that is also the reason why she care about her childhood and upbringing. She wants Sophie to grow up with the Chinese culture, and to take the Chinese values to her heart. I think, it is perceived as if her granddaughter seems to be her last chance to carry on the Chinese traditions. Perhaps a hope that tradition and history will not be forgotten. Something she herself, has not been able to do with her own daughter. To be integrated into a new society but preserve the pride and love of its origins, and its own cultural heritage and history.