Race and Identity

Paper Summary:

The paper examines Barak Obama's memoir "Dreams of My Father" and Maxine Hong Kingston's "The Woman Warrior" that are both tales of a search for a sense of a stable personal identity. The paper shows how their quest for identity is found through explorations of the past lives of the members of their families, as well as moving forward into the future as an adult. The paper concludes that both texts are powerful in their portrayal of identity as not merely a personal psychological crisis, but a national, cultural and familial challenge.

From the Paper:

"However, Obama's quest remains an individualistic quest to find himself, despite the title of his work that he is looking for his father. When he actually encounters his father in the flesh, he experiences a sense of displacement from his idealized African roots, as well as a sense of homecoming. Kingston's work, in contrast, because of its narrative structure, seamlessly blends the tales of her female family members and her own struggle for selfhood together, without the same level of anxiety of the need to separate and develop a distinction from her Chinese values."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Kingston, Hong Maxine. The Woman Warrior. Vintage, 1989
• Obama, Barak. Dreams of my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Three Rivers Press, 2004.

More papers on Race and Identity:

• Book Review # 114439 : "Race and Identity in Ellison's "The Invisible Man"
• Research Paper # 66171 : "A Search for Meaning and Identity"
• Analytical Essay # 138438 : "Race and Hybridity in an Era of Globalization"

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