Dim Sum: A look at ethnic identity and assimilation (First Draft)

Ruth Adive For Janice Johnson Soc. 64: American Ethnicity April 12, 2002

In the movie Dim Sum, the interaction of the mother and daughters clearly show varying degrees of assimilation into mainstream American culture and different demonstrations of assertion of the familys ethnic identity. With no evidence to the contrary, we can assume that this family immigrated to the U.S. and have been in the country long enough to adapt some of their native Chinese traditions and practices to the surrounding culture. The mother however, seems to hold onto her roots and origin more tenaciously than either of her daughters. One may argue that this may be a function of age-it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks-or merely a reluctance to betray her nationality. Yinger speculates that assimilation is a multidimensional process. While the mother seems to find a degree of difficulty in assimilating into the American culture, Geraldine and her sister, Amy, seem to have assimilated into the culture with much greater ease. In fact, although there is no explicit mention of it, it seems that Amy has already started to significantly blur the racial lines by intermarrying with a black man. The mothers comment at the party of Amys daughters hair being unruly as opposed to just curly due to the mixed blood with a presumably black man is further testament to the mothers reluctance to accept any dilution of the familys pure Chinese blood line. Parks race relations cycle offers a response to the question of what happens when people of divergent cultures come into contact and conflict. He asserts that there are three stages of this cycle-contact, accommodation, and assimilation. We can further expand this cycle to include association, acculturation, and finally amalgamation. These terms can all be used as measures of assimilation. Certain cultural idioms such as speech patterns or language, food, and celebrations all indicate various degrees of assimilation.

Clues to the various degrees of absorption are demonstrated in Dim Sum. For example, we notice that the mother seems to prefer communicating with her family in Chinese whether or not she receives responses in Chinese or English. One could argue that because the daughters respond to the mother in English for the most part, they have assimilated faster than the mother. However, the mother obviously understands and speaks English and her refusal to speak it may point to a determined effort to hold onto her native ethnicity. In this case, the mother is accomodating the American culture without necessarily assimilating it. The family does still try to maintain its ethnic identity but it is easy to see how certain elements are being lost. The fact that while the mother is home, the family eats Chinese food points to efforts to hold onto the culture. However, when Geraldine and the uncle try to cook Chinese food and fail, we see evidence of atrophy. Traditions such as taking off your shoes in the house also indicate the value that the family still places on their ways of doing things. It is easy to imagine that the cultural chasm present in the family will only widen with each generation. Amys daughter is evidence of the increasing absorption of American ethnic identity into this familys culture.