Dragon the American Dream in

¶ … Dragon The American Dream in the Year of the Dragon Frank Chin's play the Year of the Dragon recounts the story of the ENG family, particularly through the perspective of the eldest son of the family Fred Eng.

The children of the family are all largely grown up, at least insofar as age is concerned, and yet Fred has not managed to find his true place in his life in Chinatown, caught between the Chinese persona that is thrust upon him in his work as a tour guide and the American identity he feels but unable to assert due to the way the rest of the country seems to see him.

Fred's struggle is in this manner reflective of the larger Chinese immigrant experience, at least for many of the immigrants who made their way to the United States' shores during the second half of the nineteenth century and in waves and trickles ever since. Fred's siblings -- his married and Americanized sister Sissy and his younger and misguided brother Johnny, have found their own paths in this country, showing other parts of the immigrant experience.

There was work to be had in this country for immigrant workers willing to break their backs for relatively little pay, especially after slavery was abolished, and this brought many Chinese immigrants to the country in the latter half of the nineteenth century. At the same time, there was a great deal of mistrust and dislike for these foreigners, with their strange looks, language, and customs.

The Exclusion Acts of 1882 and 1924 put legal caps on the number of Chinese immigrants that would be allowed in the country, distinguishing them from other groups of immigrants (though certain other specific immigrant groups were also the focus of legislation, albeit to a lesser degree). This meant that there was a need for and appreciation of Chinese labor, but ill feelings towards the laborers themselves. For some immigrants, large populations of Chinese made it perfectly possible to insulate themselves from such complexities by simply dealing with other Chinese people.

In his ignoring of the American Dream, Johnny exemplifies this type of immigrant experience. He is uninterested in any life outside of Chinatown and the life and business that his father has built. Despite the wealth of opportunity that exists in the wider world, and even the opportunities that could be had in Chinatown with a wider perspective and engagement, Johnny wants nothing to do with it.

Life is not about a struggle to make things better for Johnny -- an aspect essential to the American Dream's ideal of pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps -- but instead he simply wants to live his life with the customs he is used to. It is an essentially lazy approach, consisting not merely of the path of least resistance but also the least movement.

Sissy Eng stands out in direct contrast to her younger brother, having fully embraced the American Dream by marrying a white husband -- one who interestingly exoticizes Chinese people and culture -- and capitalizing on her Chinese heritage through the publication and sale of a cookbook, in which she takes enormous pride and pleasure. She, like her father though in a less subservient manner, fully caters to the American expectation of her Chinese identity, and uses it to make her own version of the American Dream.

She is quite successful at this as well, and is entirely happy with the life she has created for herself as a staunch Chinese-American. Sissy does not exhibit any sense of guilt or conflict for having "sold-out," but rather accepts the largely artificial identity of her mixed culture or nationality as her natural place in the American systems of thinking and success. Fred Eng is, in fact, the only of the Eng children that is actually in real conflict when it comes to the American Dream.

His brother ignores it, his sister embraces it, and Fred rejects it -- not because he doesn't want it, but because he realizes that it does not really apply to him, if indeed it applies to anyone at all. Fred does not feel free to create his own identity in this country; unlike Johnny, he is not satisfied to be relegated to a tiny spot in the city, insulating himself, and unlike Sissy Fred is not willing to make his identity an artificial approximation of their expectations. he does this,.