Language and Identity: Sky Lee's Disappearing Moon Caf and Wayson Choy's The Jade Peony

Many critics recognize Sky Lees "Disappearing Moon Cafe" and Wayson Choys "The Jade Peony" for breaking the silence over issues that Chinese Canadians faced in the 1990s such as racism and lack of representation. However, there has not been much discussion on Lee and Choy's exploration of language and identity. These issues are important as they continue to impact Chinese-Canadians and other diasporic communities today.

The thesis explores how language in the two novels reveals that Chinese Canadians have complex and mutable identities and how notions of identity challenge the control the hegemonic powers seek to construct and restrict the Chinese identity, which in turn also restricts ideas of language. I attempt to demonstrate how these two novels resist a generic, one-dimensional view of Chinese Canadian identity and language. I conclude that Lee and Choy's novels imply that both Canadian and Chinese hegemonies influence Chinese Canadians' language and identity.