SOURCE: Karle, Katherine A. “Reconsideration: Flamingos and Bison—Balance in Chinatown Family.” MELUS 15, no. 2 (summer 1988): 93-9.

In the following essay, Karle considers the Chinese and American cultural issues introduced in Chinatown Family.

Lin Yutang's Chinatown Family may be read usefully on numerous levels: it is a story of Chinese immigrants in the U.S., a comparison of two cultures, and a Bildungsroman. Briefly, thirteen-year-old Tom, the novel's protagonist, immigrates to America with his mother and younger sister, Eva, to join his father and two older brothers who had preceded him in moving to America to make the family's fortune. Having for ten years been separated from his father and brothers, Tom literally begins a new life. Lin balances Tom's uneasiness over the old-world expectations of his “new” father with Tom's exuberance over American technology and its new ideas.

In addition, Lin contrasts Tom's gradual growth from Chinese to...