許多來自第三世界的女性學者，如華裔學者周蕾（Rey Chow）與黃秀玲（Sau-ling Cynthia Wong）以及南亞裔學者蔻奚（Susan Koshy）與谷路瓦（Inderpal Grewal）皆曾指出，西方女性主義學者向來偏好第三世界落魄女性的敘述。這類美國小說強烈暗示：第三世界和美國的差異，也正是落後和進步、壓迫和解放、貧窮和富裕的對立。小說所呈現的美國偏重歌誦、缺少批判。相對而言，聶華聆的《桑青與桃紅》和林露德（Ruthanne Lum McCunn）的《千金》（Thousand Pieces of Gold），則質疑美國的國家建構及其封閉性。兩本小說的女主角跨洋到美國，《千金》中的拉路／波莉（Lalu Nathoy/Polly Bemis）透過與白人結婚獲得合法身分，而《桑青與桃紅》的女主角在美國境內四處遊走，處處難為家，但也處處為家。桑青／桃紅的美國遭遇描寫了華人離散族群的無根和夾於國共之間的尷尬，也突顯了標榜移民國家的美國的排他（華）性。這兩個華裔女性的跨國旅程可代表華美研究的兩種思維：華裔離散族群意識及華裔移民認同。兩者效忠的對象不同，前者多以中國及其想像為核心，後者則以美國為目的地。

Many Asian American critics have noted western feminist critics’ penchant for the third-world damsel in distress: feminist scholars in the West have preferred third-world narratives where women in underdeveloped or developing countries suffer from gender oppression and economic exploitation unawares but out of a stroke of luck get enlightened and rescued through encounters with the first world. In such narratives, the differences between the U.S. and the third world are reduced to the contrast between advancement and underdevelopment, liberation and oppression, as well as affluence and paucity. While such narratives sing praise of the U.S., Hualing Nieh’s novel Mulberry and Peach and Rughanne Lum McCunn’s biographical novel Thousand Pieces of Gold differ from them by foregrounding the selectivity of U.S. national identity and the exclusivity of its nation building project. Lalu/Nathoy in Thousand Pieces of Gold eventually obtains her legal residency by marrying a white man, whereas Mulberry/Peach ends up roaming across the continent—her guerrilla wandering bespeaks the predicament of an uprooted Chinese exile. The trans-Pacific voyages of Lalu/Polly and Mulberry/Peach illustrate two critical approaches in Chinese American studies: the immigrant mentality and the diasporic perspective. While Chinese immigrants gravitate towards the U.S. nation state and may help promote the American dream myth, the Chinese diasporic perspective may serve to question hegemonic U.S. national culture, although it may also be symptomatic of Sinocentrism.