Migrant writings have always formed an intrinsic part of World Literature, yielding several insights into the myriad problems of existence. Thus, they contribute to the enhancement of the corpus of World Literature. Yet, migrant writings often tend to get misinterpreted and classified under the subgenre ‘Diasporic writings.’ However, migrant writings are more complex in nature as well as in their treatment of issues, and deserve much more serious attention. The writings of Chinese American women, with their divergent output, are a case in point. Among this corpus, Amy Tan occupies a special literary space with her unique representation of the suppression of women by patriarchy as well as the forces of customs and tradition. This paper attempts to contextualize Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife and also locate how certain ancient Chinese customs have become an obstacle to the progress of Chinese women. The paper also explores how the Chinese women have broken out of certain conventional constraints and emerged as independent individuals in their own right.

Life for women in diasporic situations can be doubly painful—struggling with the material and spiritual insecurities of exile, with the demands of family and work, and with the claims of old and new patriarchies.
–James Clifford1

Diasporic writing is a blanket term used for all migrant writings. At the same time, diasporic writing is more complex, and migrant experience alone is not diasporic writing. However, migrant experience does help to understand diasporic writing. Among migrant writings, Chinese American writing occupies a unique place. We should note that there is a misrepresentation in Chinese American writing, which is male-centered, and all of male experiences are taken to represent the whole of Chinese American experiences. There arises a vacuum about the position and role of women.

Chinese American literature by women is a new development in the field of postcolonial literature. Writings by the women of Chinese ancestry, for example Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan, are an act of rebellion against the historical and societal conditions they lived. Chinese women are caught between the two worlds—old and new patriarchies—that oppress them, and their writing becomes an aggressive act to establish their position. But the question arises as to how Chinese American women writers perceive women. In stereotypes: docile, subservient, bound by tradition. This paper contextualizes the need for a reappraisal of the misrepresentation of Chinese American women writers.

American Literature Journal, Amor in Pound, Classical European Literature, Homosexuality, Diastasis, Olga-Circe-Artemis, Heterosexual Love, Homosexual Love.