Abstract:Amy Tan, is a Chinese-American female writer much influenced by her father’s western culture and her mother’s eastern culture. She is well-known by her best-seller novel The Joy Luck Club, which is to seek for the balance between the duality of different cultural identity. It has been well received since it was published in 1989. The cultural conflict between the Eastern and the Western, as a theme, can be seen often in Amy Tan’s works, and leads to the identity crisis of two generations of Chinese-Americans and is the root that makes them to seek for their cultural identities. The two generations have no actual concepts about each other’s cultural identities, which leads to the intensive conflicts between the mothers and daughters in the novel of The Joy Luck Club.
This paper will use the concept of “cultural identity” to analyze the duality of immigrant identity（the Chinese identity and American identity）, the identity crisis, the conflicts and reconciliation between the Eastern and Western cultures, and the nature of this crisis based on the related plot.
This paper will be divided into three parts:
1. The crisis and dilemma caused by the duality of immigrant identity of the two generations.
2. The explanation of the cultural identity crisis.
3. The reconstruction of their cultural identities.
Conclusion: Against the backdrop of the conflict and collision of globalization, the binary opposition between Eastern and western culture will be the biggest barrier for Chinese Americans to establish their cultural identities, and only when this barrier reconciled and when they combine the good elements of the two cultures can they find their real cultural identities.
Key Words: Amy Tan; the conflict between the Eastern and Western; identity crisis; cultural identity;
中文摘要:谭恩美是美国华裔著名女性作家，她的畅销小说《喜福会》自1989年出版以来深受各界好评。东西文化冲突是反复出现在谭恩美作品中的主题，而这也是造成《喜福会》这部小说中母女两代人身份危机的主要原因，亦是她们苦寻文化身份的根结所在。由于两代人对于彼此的文化身份没有确切的认同，这是导致母女矛盾加剧并且愈演愈烈的根源。而作家本人也是在父亲的西方文化与母亲的东方文化的双重影响下寻求两种文化身份的平衡。
本文将运用“文化身份”的概念，分析《喜福会》中母女的东西文化冲突的情节, 探索其移民身份的双重性(即中国性和美国性)和由此引发的身份危机，以及从中反映出的中美文化的对立与融合，揭示这种文化身份危机产生的根源。
本论文将分为三大部分：第一部分论述母女两代人在双重身份下的危机与窘境；第二部分解读产生这种文化身份危机的缘由和其移民文化身份的重建。第三部分是结论：在全球文化冲突和碰撞的大背景下，东西方文化的对立是确立自我文化身份的最大障碍，只有融合这两种文化，取其二者有益精髓，才能真正确立华裔美国人真正的文化身份，促进世界多元文化的融合与发展。
关键词：谭恩美；东西文化冲突；身份危机；文化身份
