In the American Society

The primary theme in this short story is the difficulties of the Chinese immigrant experience in America. Jen shows different strategies through which immigrants attempt to succeed in America and the benefits and drawbacks of these methods. Through the family’s failure to successfully navigate the party, Jen asserts that regardless of the strategy, assimilating into the dominant culture is not guaranteed. However, the family’s unity at the end reflects that family and community can provide alternative modes of belonging.

Mr. Chang experiences the greatest difficulties in his new culture, which shows the limitations of trying to recreate one’s home culture in a new country. Mr. Chang succeeds financially, and as such, he gains confidence and begins to think back to his grandfather. He wants to treat his employees like his grandfather treated people in their province back in China, establishing a patriarchal system in which he is the head. This involves blurring the boundaries between his employees’ workplace and his own private life; he asks his employees to chauffer him around and fix things in his home. While minimum wage workers in the United States are often overworked and underpaid, these tasks show the difference between Mr. Chang’s expectations and what his new culture will tolerate.