In the play Ching Chong Chinaman by Lauren Yee, one of the central problems throughout the story is the conflict between Desdemona and her parents. Desdemona feels extremely pressured by her parents to attend Princeton for college, and she feels as if she is unqualified to attend the school, especially after reading the application essay prompt.
When reading the prompt, Desdemona discovers she will be required to write about a time in her life in which she felt she had to face a struggle or overcome a challenge. Although she believes she is a Chinese American, Desdemona feels that she hasn’t experienced the same struggles others of her ethnicity have faced. The internal conflict to discover who she is to apply for school in combination with the external conflict between her and her parents leads to a very interesting storyline for Desdemona.
This conflict reflects on the pressure that minority groups feel to conform to “normal” American culture. For example, it is very common for parents to send their kids to college after graduating high school, even if there is a better career/life path for them, because it has become American society’s normalcy for graduates to attend further education and to eventually get what U.S. society recognizes as a standard job. However, other jobs, such as mechanics, that don’t require further education are just as important for our society to function. Because Desdemona’s parents are new to the country, they feel additional pressure to assimilate into the country, and that pressure gets transferred onto their daughter.
As for the internal conflict within Desdemona, as a teenager, she is at a time in her life where she is questioning things about herself and her background that she might not have before. Especially for a child who doesn’t have clarity in her background, she is having trouble feeling comfortable in her own skin and she struggles to truly discover herself, something she feels she needs to know to apply for school. This reflects again on the pressure of minority groups to conform to American culture. It’s almost as if the parents don’t want to tell their daughter more about her background, not only because she’s secretly adopted, but because they want her to focus more on her American life rather than on any aspects of life where she was originally from. Our background and ethnicity can be an important part in shaping who we are, and knowing little about her early life, and further on in the play, realizing everything she did know is a lie, only confuses Desdemona more.
Overall, Desdemona‘s lack of knowledge about her ethnicity impacts her confidence in herself and therefore her confidence when applying to Princeton. This is worsened by the pressure on her parents to get into school, which stems from the pressure they feel to send their daughter to college. Ching Chong Chinaman uses the idea of applying to college and the conflict surrounding it between Desdemona and her parents to highlight the pressure put on minority groups and immigrants to the United States to conform to American society and culture, and to not recognize anything about their own background or ethnicity.
I really liked how you were able to acknowledge the importance of knowing about our background as teenagers. I think it impacts our growth and approach to the world as we grow up, and Desdemona’s stress must be a widely shared emotion.
I liked the way you explained how parents sent away their children after graduating high school or pressure them to go to a certain college for their better future, without even asking what the children actually want to do with their life. I can feel what Desdemona went through the situation.