Amy Tan And Firoozeh Dumas Essay

The events in Dumas’ flashbacks prove stereotypical behavior and close-mindedness of Americans hinder assimilation. Dumas tells the reader of the difficulty she has while trying to get a job due to her name. “Even though I had graduated with honors from UC– Berkeley, I couldn’t get a single interview... After three months of rejections, I added “Julie”

In the book Habibi, by Naomi Shihab Nye, there are many ways that the author expresses her feelings of “identity” through the main character, Liyana. The main forms of identity are ethnicity, religion, and age. These all affect the way that people look at you and judge you. In Habibi, Liyana is judged by her age, religion, and ethnicity. This is also part of why moving to a different country is hard for Liyana; people in Jerusalem judge your identity differently. However, Liyana does not let the comments of others change her. She still stays true to her own opinion of her ethnicity, age, and religion throughout the novel. This helps her settle the many internal and external disputes associated with living in a new country with a different part

After years of being called by the wrong name, Firoozeh finally decided to give herself an American name. She went by the first name of Julie. This disguise name made her complacent. Going to school with a “normal” name made her life infinitely simpler and more enjoyable. For a while, Dumas was comfortable with her new name; her peers finally accepted her as an American. All was fine until she heard negative comments about “those damn iranians.” Her American name disguised her so well that her peers had no clue about her ethnic identity. This gave her the ability to see right through people without them having the knowledge of who she really was. Throughout her college years she decided to go back to her original birth name. As soon as she changed her name, she started reliving her life as an iranian immigrant. Sh applied to jobs and could not manage to get a single interview, despite the fact she graduated from UC Berkeley. One look at her name and interviewers bame their decision and skipped on to the next resume. Dumas decided to reapplied to the same jobs with her American name and just as she predicted, the job offers started coming in. She compared this situation to having an evil twin and having to play both roles on a soap opera, but was struggling to play both roles and could not complain to the screenwriter because it was her own fault for her chastising herself by hiding behind an average American

At hoe, Amy Tan maintained a loving relationship with her mother. There, they were able to speak to each other the same way and understand each other perfectly. It was only outside the home that communication became a problem. She recalls how people disrespected her mother in department stores, restaurants and other places. Her mother, on a daily basis, received a constant condescending attitude from people. Tan became very uncomfortable with such attitudes. When her mother is disrespected or treated unfairly, Tan would simply “sit there red-faced and quiet”. She never felt angry toward her mother, like Khang did. However, she did feel that her mother’s informal English limited her perception of her.

Amy’s Mother says, “ you want to be the same as American girls on the outside” ( Tan 2). This quote shows that Amy is insecure by not liking herself on the way she looks on the inside. Her mother realizes that she is self-conscious and wants to look like an American girl. Amy”s mother says that you may not look like an American girl on the outside for Robert to like her, but if Robert really likes her, he shouldn't care about appearances or how a girl looks, he should focus on differences that's what makes a person unique as what her mother says to her towards the end of the story. Also, Amy feels insecure about her culture while inviting Robert’s family over for dinner, “Amy, your favorite, he said, offering me the tender fish cheek. I wanted to disappear” (Tan 2). This quote also shows that Amy is insecure about her culture because, during dinner, Amy’s mother hands her, her favorite meal of the night. Amy likes the tender fish cheeks although Amy felt insecure which led to embarrassment. Amy feels insecure because her family is showing Robert what Amy’s cultural foods are. Although, some traditions are different than others, Amy’s mom shows a good example of being different is unique even though Amy is insecure about her culture. Amy feels insecure because of how she looks , she wants to look like an American girl and also, her culture. Even though Amy is

It is not uncommon to sometimes hear or see what here in America is considered to be a strange or different name and decide to make fun of it or the holder of that name. This is a major obstacle that an Iranian immigrant named Firoozeh Dumas, author of “The ‘F-Word” had to face. She illustrates a picture using words about the hardships that her name has brought upon her during her entire life. Throughout her essay, she uses real-life examples, humor, and a conversational tone to show her audience the poverty she faced when transitioning from the Iranian culture to the American culture.

Amy Tan is an author who uses the theme of Chinese-American life, focusing mainly on mother-daughter relationships, where the mother is an immigrant from China and the daughter is a thoroughly Americanized --yellow on the surface and white underneath. In her book, the mother tries to convey their rich history and legacy to her daughter, who is almost completely ignorant of their heritage, while the daughter attempts to understand her hopelessly old- fashioned mother, who now seems to harbor a secret wisdom, who, in the end, is right about everything all along. At the opening of the story "A Pair of Tickets" Jandale Woo and her father are on a train, the are destined for China. Their first stop will be Guangzhou, China where he father will

Mother Tongue is a story that describes how Amy Tan’s mother was treated unfairly because of her “broken English”. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. Her mom, who speaks “limited” English, needs Tan to be her “translator” in order to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan has felt ashamed of her mother “broken” language at first. She then contemplates her background affected her life and her study. However, she changes her thought at the end since she realizes things behind language might be more valuable than language itself sometimes. Through the various different literary devices and rhetorical strategies such as the ethos, pathos, and logos appeals, as well as a

Amy Tan had many personal experiences in her story. For example, when Amy Tan was living in Northern California, her mother had very high expectations on her. Her mother wanted her to be with the American society and be the best she could be. Amy Tan had to get a haircut very short to the way other famous children were acting in the United States. Amy’s mother was the one who encouraged this. With that, in the story “Two Kinds,” the young girl named Jing-mei live in a part of California and she had to get a very short haircut. Jing-mei’s mother wanted her daughter to look and act the same way Shirley Temple did. Within both of the girls lives, they each had to act like an already famous person exactly to please their mothers.

On the other hand, Amy Tan brings up similar hardships, however, the way she explains them may imply that they are not at all “hardships” in her opinion. She grew up the daughter of Chinese immigrants. To other people, they hear her mother speak English and automatically consider it “broken” or “fractured” English. Tan expresses that she does not consider it broken at all. She begins to explain that when she is speaking to her mother, being the successful writer she

After watching both TED Talks videos, I noticed that both Amy Purdy and Diana Nyad demonstrated many examples of both positive and negative leadership styles. One instance of this which Amy Purdy elaborates on, is the fact that true leaders view obstacles and shortcomings as opportunities for further growth rather than permitting oneself to be consumed by them. This is so as Purdy cites the instance of losing her legs, which inspired her to continue pursuing her passion for snowboarding by competing as a Paralympian and not letting her disability prevent her from following her aspirations. Purdy elaborates on this by stating that challenges and setbacks “can only do two things: one, stop us in our tracks or two, force us to get creative.” (Purdy,

Tan shows that she is embarrassed in her family for their lacking of proper American manners. Although at the time she felt ashamed, the words spoken by her mother, “Inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame” became better understood later in life. In Amy Tan's work, the strong use of description of both the event that are occurring and Amy’s feelings about them, draws the reader in and makes them feel as if they are part of the action. Tan's Chinese-American culture and life stories are imprinted in her writing which gives the reader an opportunity to gain knowledge about the way of life in her family, friends, and even the Chinese culture. Tan's main purpose of writing is to inform and educate people about growing up as a minority in the American society.

In the essay "Fish Cheeks" it says, "For Christmas I prayed for this blond-haired boy, Robert, and a slim new American nose." This statement proposes that Amy thinks if she looks American to the outside world she will become American. Amy Tan is very embarrassed by her family who does not try to change to fit in, but shows their culture proudly. "At the end of the meal my father leaned back and belched loudly, thanking my mother for her fine cooking. "It's a polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfied" explained my father" (Tan 6). She then goes on to wonder what Robert would think of her family's "shabby Chinese Christmas" (Tan 2) because that night for dinner, they would be having her mother's strange Chinese menu instead of the traditional roasted turkey and sweet potatoes. In conclusion Amy Tan is scared that her family and the menu will reveal that she is indeed Chinese so she won't be able to hide it from her crush any

Tan’s attitude towards her mother’s English begins with embarrassment and humiliation. Growing up in an immigrant family which speaks imperfect English, Tan witnesses many discriminations that her mother has encountered in department stores or at banks, those experiences help to shape Tan’s opinion to her mother’s English. For example, Tan states that “[she] was ashamed of [her mother’s] English. [She] believed that [her mother’s] English reflected the quality of what [her] mother had to say” (508). In young Amy’s opinion, her mother’s expressions and thoughts are broken and imperfect like the way she speaks, and she believes that linguistic expression is linked to a person’s intelligence. As a result, she was ashamed of her mother in public because of her fractured English.

“If you can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man.”