The story takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown, an Asian community, and one of the many culturally diverse areas in the United States. Research the closest large city to your area and see if you can find at least three distinct cultural communities within that city's region. How do these communities differ from your own? In what ways are they the same?

Although the advent of communism in China in 1949 is not discussed at length in the story, the larger work, The Joy Luck Club, is based upon the experiences of four Chinese women who have fled communism and emigrated to the United States, as many did at the time. Research this period of terror and uncertainty in China and write a journal entry from the perspective of a man who is fleeing China at the same time. How would this man's...