Chuck and Li-Young Lee have no idea who the hell they are. Both are similar characters from two different books by two different authors; but they are looking for the same thing: identity and what space do they occupy? Chuck identifies with the New York scene and the kind of people who live there, but he has no space or identity of his own just as Lee is confused about who he is and has to immerse himself in meta-poetics to find his space and his identity. Both are lost in a fog of confusion and must look very carefully at both themselves and the friends, family, heritage and history surrounding their lives. This article will examine the characters' historical and ethnic conflicts and how they come to reconcile their space and identity in a foreign land facing these issues. Some of these problems stem from misrepresented information and initial biases, while others stem from a lack of personal information and relying on one's past, history, and personal perception of oneself occupying a space. At the beginning of the text Chuck identifies with his New York “identity” as well as being a “renaissance man” rather than having a named identity (Naqvi, 1). He notices forced identities that he is not a part of or had not been a part of before; “We would have become Japanese, Jews, blacks. We weren't before” (Naqvi, 1). Chuck notes that these identities and spaces are created; feels something forced about being included in a space that wasn't there before. It's not apparent at first, Chuck has a severed connection to his heritage, when he thinks about what food to eat, "eating homemade food, comfort food, alone made me cringe" (Naqvi, 32). He can't even bring himself to eat the food he grew. This is further strengthened by the fact that it does not count... middle of paper... But it also wants to accept the American identity, but "its sensual, salient actuality, which punctuates the void from which such hunger arises and to which it proceeds ” (Lee, 84). Through accepting his East Asian identity, his soul is “split so that the soul can be restored.” His soul is split, but by his own action he must accept the his hyphenated identity, embrace it and accept it. Although both characters come to find their identity and space, historical and ethnic struggles haunt them and follow them along the way. Neither character is accepted into American culture and must identify with others in his position. This causes a lot of anguish and sudden shock to the character, these characters find their identity; although not what they might have originally expected or wanted, they became part of something that would accept them.