Applying a historical approach which contextualizes ethnic and gender perspectives, this thesis investigates the obstacles that second-generation Chinese American women encountered as they moved into the public sphere. This included sexual restraints at home and racial harassment outside. This study examines, as well, the opportunities that stimulated these women to break from their confinements. Anna May Wong and Hazel Ying Lee will serve as two role models among this second generation of women who successfully combined their cultural heritage with their education in the U.S. Their contributions inspired a whole generation of young bi-cultural women of their time. I will argue that, although the second generation had gone through cultural acculturation and resistance toward American mainstream culture, they constructed their new Chinese American identity during World War II through a synthesis of their contribution to the gender relations and ethnic identification in nationalist project.