The presentation of a hybrid identity in Fred Wah´s 'Diamond Grill': Food and habitation as ethnic markers and Chinese Canadians

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Vienna, language: English, abstract: The following seminar paper is concerned with the presentation of a hybrid identity in Fred Wah´s Diamond Grill and the cultural significance of food. In the beginning, the most important stages of the author´s life shall help to embed the story in its historical and socio-cultural context. After a detailed discussion on the symbolic meaning of food, with various examples providing insight into the many functions that food takes in daily life and human existence, as well as its crucial role in the context of communities, the paper will shift its focus to the text itself. The term 'biotext' and its emergence will be discussed and information on identity, ethnicity, other important themes and issues in the text and the language employed by Wah will be given. The last part of this paper constitutes its centrepiece, in which food as a metaphor and its cultural significance as a multilayered strategy and trope in postcolonial life writing will be discussed. The culinary language employed in Wah´s innovative discourse of Diamond Grill makes the concept of food a metonymy of the elaboration of identity and culture. The use of food as a metaphor in the author´s culinary memoirs will be discussed, and the way in which the metaphor of food provides an axis for the understanding of Wah´s explorations of his socio-cultural background will be explained in more detail.