Immigrant, especially their children who are not informed enough to their origins, tend to struggle culturally and socially because they live in a society where they belong to the minority group. The differences they face eventually make them denying and changing their own identity to be part of the majority group. This behavior is well captured in Alice Pung’s Growing Up Asian in Australia which brings social identity as its main theme. The occurrence of cultural issues including norms, perspectives, values, and customs make the reading experience more interesting. When the readers read this anthology, they have their own norms, perspectives, values and customs practiced by their social group. Thus, this study is conducted to analyze how the readers respond to the issue of social identity in Alice Pung’s Growing Up Asian in Australia.
Using David Bleich’s theory of subjective reader response criticism, the aim of this study is to answer what types of social identity in the anthology revealed by the readers and how the readers make meaning of social identity issues in the anthology. The primary source of the study is the responses of the readers, while the secondary is the anthology, especially the four chosen stories; “Sticks and Stones and Such-like”, “A Call to Arms”, “Five Ways to Disappoint Your Vietnamese Mother” and “My First Kiss”.
The result shows that there are five types of social identity can be found, which are racial identity, ethnic identity, gender identity, national identity, and personal identity. In responding to the issues in the stories, the readers adopt one three positions; preferred, in which they agree, oppositional, in which they disagree and negotiated group, in which they partly agree and partly disagree to the text. In making meaning of social identity issue in the anthology, the readers’ responses can be categorized into three; self reflection, self acceptance, and social identity issue awareness. In self reflection, the readers reflect on themselves when they read the text. It is found that their responses are influenced by their own past experiences, as Bleich suggested. The readers shared similar experiences with the writers of the texts. In self acceptance, the readers make meaning of the issues as self development, in which they start to realize how important it is to accept their own self, after reading the stories. Meanwhile in the next stage, the readers relate the issues to the world beyond the text, in which they develop awareness of social identity issue among their own society. The result shows that there are two common social identity issues the readers found in their society; name and the idea of modernity, and physical appearance issue.