One Image, a thousand words: Revealing and concealing in Aimee Liu's Face

Resumen

With the advent of the twenty-first century upon us, concepts such as mestizaje, cultural hybridisation and transculturalism have become the absolute protagonists of the tendency of modern societies towards the attainment of a respectful, multicultural world. Nonetheless, the reality of the situation differs substantially from the theory. In the United States, as well as in many other developed countries, insurmountable divides prevail between the rich and the poor, the natives of a country and the immigrants and so on. The hierarchical organization of each of these collectives, brings about their internal fragmentation into different "subgroups," which are subsequently considered "minoritary" within their own communities. Among said subgroups, we may turn our attention to that of the Third World Women. Aimee Liu's novel Face (1994), representative of the Asian-American community, describes the experience in this respect of its protagonist, Maibelle. Like many other female protagonists in the works of "minority" writers, she is described as a person involved in a painful process of assimilation of her true identity. The aim of this essay is to expose the importance that stories acquire for the acceptance of her position in the community she belongs to.