SOURCE: Kachuba, John. Review of Mona in the Promised Land, by Gish Jen. Antioch Review 55, no. 1 (winter 1997): 114.

In the following review, Kachuba describes Mona in the Promised Land as an insightful and witty novel.

The '90s could be called the decade of multicultural literature, as Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian writers make their unique voices heard and clamor for inclusion in the American literary canon. Jen is one such writer. In her latest novel [Mona in the Promised Land], she employs her considerable wit and humor to skewer her experiences growing up as a “hyphenated-American,” in this case Chinese-American.

It is the late sixties and Mona Chang, teenaged daughter of upwardly mobile Chinese immigrants Ralph and Helen, leads anything but an impoverished immigrant existence in posh Scarshill, New York. The grim realities of China are faded but ever-present memories for Mona's parents, who practice Chinese calligraphy...