本书一个重要的理论支撑是将文化作为一个有无数子系统的系统，无时无刻不在潜移默化地影响身处其中的个体。后现代理论中，文化的表现形式不局限于语言系统，它还包括各种媒体和媒介。法国学者罗兰·巴特认为，文化作用于个体的形式包括照片、影院、新闻报道、体育等等。这些文化系统的表现形式成为文化的子系统，被用来规约文化系统中个体的思想、世界观和行为方式。在这一理论框架下，本书分析汤亭亭的作品中华裔美国人的身份认证问题。探讨她的小说是如何通过人物关系、情节发展、写作手法等揭示文化系统对人物身份构建的意义和作用方式，进而推及美国社会中华裔族群的身份构建问题。
本书将文化理论与媒介、历史、意识形态结合，分析汤亭亭的文本中华裔男性身份构建问题。个体的身份构建取决于多种因素。从社会历史背景、个人文化背景、种族特征以及个体与社团的关系几个方面入手，分析汤亭亭文本中这些线索是如何决定其小说人物的身份构建的，推而广之，了解少数族裔男性身份构建中的种种关键因素。

Chapter 1 An Overview of Chinese American Literature
1.1 General Overview of Chinese Americans in the U.S
1.2 The Emergency and Exuberance of Chinese American Literature
1.3 Maxine Hong Kingston as the Leading Figure of Chinese Americal Literature
1.4 Studies on Maxine Hong Kingston's Works
1.5 The Identity Politics in Kingston's Works
Chapter 2 Fictionlized History:Historical Writing as Counter-discourse
2.1 Ethmic History and Individual Identity
2.2 Photography and Minority Historical Documentation
2.3 Kingston's Fictionalized Accoubt of Herf Ethnic History
2.4 Manipulation of the Whites and the Absence of the Chinese Americans
2.5 The History of Chinese Americans and the Personal Photos-A Past Deliberately Forgotten
2.6 Photos as a Means of Propaganda-The Demonized Cihinese American
Chapter 3 The Pressure of Assimilatio-Movie as the Message
3.1 The Magnified Physical Features-The Interaction between Ethnical Identity and Screen Image
3.2 The Cinematic Depictions of Chinese Americans and the Effects
3.3 The Impulse of Imitation and the Pressure of Assimilation-The Semiotic Persuasion
3.4 The Interplay of Ethmicity and Gender and Its Effect on the Identity Formation
Chapter 4 Breaking the Silence-Oral Narrative in Kingston's Text
4.1 The Significance of Story-telling
4.2 The Inheritance adn Reinvention of Chinese Traditional Oral Culture
4.3 The Features of Oral Narrative-interactiveness and Participativeness
4.4 The Imetation of Oral Narrative Structure in China Men
4.5 The Omniscient Motherly Narrator-Guanyin
4.6 The Texts Full of Sounds and Fury
Chapter 5 Pear Garden in the West
5.1 Theater as The Convergence of Heterogeneous Discourses
5.2 Theater as Identity-shaping Force
5.3 Chinese Stofry-telling Tradition as the Journey
5.4 Theater as a Sign of Cultural Regeneration
5.5 Theater as the Chmmunal Effort
Chapter 6 Conclusions
Notes
Appendices
References