SOURCE: Chua, Chen Lok. “Two Chinese Versions of the American Dream: The Golden Mountain in Lin Yutang and Maxine Hong Kingston.” MELUS 8, no. 4 (winter 1981): 61-70.

In the following essay, Chua compares the idea of an ‘American Dream’ in both Lin's Chinatown Family and Maxine Hon Kingston's Woman Warrior and China Men.

Early Chinese immigrants shared a version of the American dream indicated by their colloquial (and still current) Chinese name for America which translates as “Golden Mountain”—Kum Sum. This name derives, of course, from the historical moment of Chinese immigration: the worldwide gold rush to California. Three Chinese immigrated to California in 1848; by 1851, there were 25,000; and in 1884, half of California's farm workers were Chinese.¹ The phrase “Golden Mountain,” therefore, summarizes the dream of the first Chinese who came to America in the pursuit of frankly materialistic goals—to get rich quickly and to retire to their native...