At what point does the Asian immigrant become an Asian American?

I recently finished Ha Jin's latest novel A Free Life (2007). This novel is Jin's first set completely in the U.S. discussing life as a Chinese immigrant. I was going to include a link to the NY Times Book review, but I found this one by a blog called "Hallucina" that I think gives a very good summary of what the book does in terms of its adherence to the themes of immigration and living as an immigrant in the U.S. (click here).


I liked the novel--I actually liked it better than any of the other things I've read by Jin (his award winning novel Waiting, his collection of short stories Ocean of Words and The Bridegroom). There was a bleak repetition, for me, of these works in their themes dealing with Communist China of the 1970s and 1980s and with the bleakness of much of the characters' lives.

I suppose, in some ways, these themes continue in his latest novel. But for some reason, I found them more compelling--and I agreed with Hallucina--that one of the most powerful things about this novel is recognizing that regardless of whether people are living in China or America, their humanity is always with them--which is to say, the difficulties of being human follow you in the U.S. just as they do in China. This novel isn't going to be for everyone--its over 600 pages, although each chapter is only 3-6 pages long, which makes it feel as if it's easier to read or that it reads faster than it probably does. Perhaps I appreciated the descriptions of writing--the challenges of trying to be an artist and the compromises you have to make between the prosasic needs of putting food on the table versus the poetry you want your life to be immersed in.

But really, what I wanted to write about today was the question in this post's title: When does an Asian immigrant become an Asian American? In Ha Jin's case, to be more exact, when did he start to become a Chinese American writer instead of a Chinese writer? These questions are hard to tease out, in some way, for Jin because one could say that it was either his taking on, finally, Chinese American issues in his writing. Or it could be the fact that he became a naturalized American not long ago, officially becoming a Chinese American citizen.

But lets say, for argument's sake, that Jin had not become naturalized--that he continued to write about China in his fiction. Does this make him a Chinese writer versus a Chinese American writer? Must Chinese American writers write about Chinese American or Asian American subjects? How long does a Chinese immigrant have to live in the U.S. to become acculturated to American customs--and does that acculturation make one an American?

If we believe that the quality of being "American" isn't simply found within a legal document, then is it a length of time that makes one an American--to have lived here for five or ten years? Is it the fluency of one's English or the embrace of certain cultural and societal values that makes one an American?

One can make the argument that for Asian Americans, immigrant generation or otherwise, the stereotype of being "forever foreign" plagues them. But if we assume that this is not the case--if we look at other immigrant groups, Jamaicans, Germans, Ghanaian, Peruvians--at what point do they become Americans? Does it differ ethnic group to ethnic group or person to person? Does it depend on whether they are living in ethnic enclaves of their natal lands or where they are the "only ones"--or does it matter that they are in urban vs. suburban vs. rural areas?

Or, does it matter, at all--the question, that is--since it seems that regardless of what legal papers you hold, claiming America, changing from immigrant to settler, is always a state of mind and always depends on how others perceive you as much as how you perceive yourself in your newly adopted homeland.

Still, it would seem to be easier to be a settler rather than an immigrant if you are a white immigrant or if you are already fluid in English and familiar with Western customs. Or if you have money. Money does seem to be the key factor in all forms of assimilation and belonging.