Globalization implies standardization. Preserving ethnicity is inherently an act of resistance to globalization, as it pits the local against the global. Maxine Hong Kingston, through the woman warrior myth, extends a local myth to universal significance. Myths ensure the survival of ethnicity. A myth is a configured form of language. Myths survive through transmission and transmission recreates the myth in multiple versions. There is no pristine version of a myth which may be considered authentic or primary. Myths are transmitted through talk stories or through writing. Kingston reconstitutes the traditional chant of Fa Mu Lan to suit a modern American context of peace, not war. She is conscious of the First World attempts to efface the Chinese American identity. Preserving ethnicity through myth is a counter action to the First World hegemony. America, presumably, upholds multiculturalism. But Americanization is an attempt at standardization or globalization. Ethnicity comprehends heritage, physical characteristics, traditions, cultural characteristics and ethnic values. Consolidating ethnicity is an act of resistance, as it seeks to preserve and assert ethnic identity, and to prevent the homogenization of ethnic minorities. The transformation and recreation of myths prevents their lapse into cliché. Subtle changes in the orientation and configuration of myths work out the fine adjustments that match alterations in culture, values, and belief systems. Ethnicity is not a condition of stasis. In a cultural context of plurality, ethnicity must be a dynamic condition marked by a constant dialogue with the mainstream. Kingston is conscious of this dialogue. In the globalizing world, ethnicity can survive only by remaining dynamic. Ethnic identities resist the hegemony of mainstream culture by infiltrating and undermining the American language itself. Kingston does this by repositioning the warrior woman myth. The myth is reworked to transcend its local moorings. Kingston does this by giving the familiar myth a context-transcending cutting edge.

Globalization is neoliberalism, privatization and monoculturalism. It has allowed a dialogue across differences allowing people to become fluent with each other's histories. But this is a weighted dialogue tuned for the absorption and effacement of the ethnic. Americanization essentially predicates monoculture. It includes the melting pot theory, assimilation and acculturation, which has shattered cultural models. The desire for monopoly and erasure of cultures into a single homogeneous one is a major motive of white America.

Consolidation of Ethnicity: The Use of Myth in Maxine Hong Kingston, Kingston, dialogue, ethnicity, American, cultural, condition, dynamic, characteristics, Globalization, hegemony, mainstream, language, Preserving, standardization, Americanization, warrior, Consolidating, cultures, alterations, effacement, absorption, essentially, erasure, acculturation, familiar, fluent, histories, heritage, homogeneous, authentic