Negotiating Hyphenated Identities in the Selected Poems of Hilary Tham
Journal Title: International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences - Year 2019, Vol 8, Issue 8
Abstract
Hilary Tham, primarily known as a Chinese-Malaysian-American poet, makes use of her rich Asian-Chinese heritage in the various anthologies she has written throughout her life in America. She plays the role of cultural mediator by translating cultural artefacts she grew up with and aspects of the American culture she has embraced. In this paper, we explore the way Tham negotiates her multiple cultural identities through her selected poems by employing cultural translation as a lens. In the analysis, the translation of multiple cultures is centered thematically on food culture, parenting culture, old age culture, ancestor worship culture, funeral culture, and expression of love culture. We argue that the hyphenated identities negotiated in Tham’s selected poems are heterogeneous, multifaceted, polyphonic, and never unilateral by characterization. Although Tham is conscious of her role and agency as a cultural mediator in communicating the cultural differences of Asian-Chinese immigrants to her American audience, she negotiates the imbalanced power relations in most of the cultural issues and problematizes the “in-betweenness” of cultural identities, which culminates in the creation of a “Third Space” that fuses the East and the West as part of her cultural being. By way of implication, the focus on hyphenated identities through the lens of cultural translation contributes to the creation of cultural consciousness and mutual understanding of cultural variations between East-West cultures in Asian and American communities.
Authors and Affiliations
Khoo Siow See, Ruzy Suliza Hashim, Raihanah M. M.
Keywords
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- EP ID EP566216
- DOI 10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i8/4622
- Views 54
- Downloads 0
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