Moon Shadow’s coming-of-age journey, also commonly known as a bildungsroman, illuminates the Chinese American experience. As a seven-year-old boy, Moon Shadow Lee must follow his father to America and face the reality that discriminatory immigration policies and anti-immigration laws will keep his family separated for many years to come. His family is a poor, working-class family, and his father struggles to simultaneously make a living in America and provide for his wife back in China. Moon Shadow is fearful of moving to a foreign land, but he is determined to follow his father and to be a dutiful son.

His journey in Forming a Bicultural Identity is a gradual transformation fraught with many conflicts. For Moon Shadow, life in America is defined by the racial discrimination against Chinese people. As a young child, he must endure the intimidating experience of traveling to the United States as a Chinese immigrant. Remembering his time on the ship, Moon Shadow states, “I was young and I was homesick and I was frightened – especially of all the sailors, for […] I thought that they were tiger demons” (10). Through Moon Shadow’s memories, Yep describes the degrading process of inspection upon the immigrants’ entrance to San Francisco.