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Publication detail

Displacement and mourning in How Much of These Hills Is Gold

Authors: Kohlová Petra

Year: 2024

Type of publication: ostatní - přednáška nebo poster

Page from-to: nestránkováno

Titles:

Language	Name	Abstract	Keywords
eng	Displacement and mourning in How Much of These Hills Is Gold	Racial melancholia and racial dissociation are complex concepts that concern individuals (in this case, Asian Americans) dealing with issues such as displacement, immigration, diaspora, and assimilation. Racial melancholia refers specifically to the feelings of grief and loss related to assimilation and other identity-influencing processes. In contrast, racial dissociation is a coping mechanism that involves detaching oneself from one's racial identity to manage the stress of racialized experiences. The focus of this talk is on the exploration of these themes in C Pam Zhang's novel How Much of These Hills Is Gold (2020), which is set against the backdrop of the American Gold Rush and follows two young Chinese American girls as they navigate a racially hostile American West while carrying their father's corpse. The characters' identity development is impacted by historical trauma, the mourning of their lost home, and a sense of displacement, viewed through the lens of Han and Eng's 2019 theory on racial melancholia and dissociation (Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation: On the Social and Psychic Lives of Asian Americans).	racial melancholia; racial dissociation; identity; Asian American; C Pam Zhang