Fresh Off The Bridge: A Short Story

It was during the school desegregation process that I actually began to interact with those who looked like me because now there were others who did not look like me. Feeling more comfortable with my own kind, I forced myself to become a part of a group of peers who seemed to have a great deal in common. Being accepted into this group was perhaps the most difficult task to date as I had never been forced to communicate with others before. Questions about my home, siblings, parents and sporting activities were the norm. I even became close friends with a first cousin

" I agree and connect to the feeling of being unnoticed by society because when my grandmother first came to America from the Caribbean, she was homeless and had to live on the streets of Brooklyn. She would try to ask people walking by for help but was ignored, which made her feel like an empty shell for a few months due to being shunned by society. What my grandmother experienced was a culture shock because what people from Puerto Rico told her about America was that it was a place of prosperity when in reality it wasn't for her. Vuong said he felt more connected with society when he was on campus. That resonates with how my grandmother started working for a local corner store in Brooklyn and felt seen and more connected with society because she could interact with people.

As Eddie Huang writes his memoir Fresh Off the Boat he brings many points across about his culture and his lifestyle, but through the whole memoir his most provocative point he tried to convey to the audience was his struggles with the American culture and the conflicting situations he seems to get himself caught in with this new culture. For example, Huang had many encounters with other kids at school over his ethnicity and the difference of culture.

Imagine a world where everyone was accepted, no matter where they came from. It’s a dream world, am I right? Everyone has to come up in the world, and make their own place for themselves. Well, in Fresh off the Boat, Eddie Huang has to do this in the suburban world of Orlando. Being Taiwanese, he does not exactly fit into the stereotypical ‘American’ life. So, in this series, he and his family work hard to live the American dream.

In Fresh off the Boat, Eddie Huang throughout his life struggled with his own identity due to his family dynamics which play a huge part in his choices. The author touches on these tough subjects of race and domestic violence which in a sense altered his view of his identity. Identity can be developed in many ways and there are a lot of factors that shape one’s views. Factors such as family heritage and racial stereotypes can alter one’s perception of the world. The choice of whether to assimilate is up to the individual themselves. Eddie Huang is an abused and bullied child who struggles to find his own identity while combatting cultural stereotypes.

Jin Wang was born in America but is also Chinese. He faces some difficulties with racism and stereotypes as he grows up. He just moved to a new school from San Francisco. The teacher introduces him to the class and says,” Class, I'd like us all to give a warm Mayflower Elementary welcome to your new friend and Classmate Jin Wang...He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!”(30). Jin has this look on his face of annoyance. Like, did she actually say this. She is too ignorant to ask so she just assumed that since he is Chinese, that he must be from China. He was born in America. This just shows how ignorant people are about other cultures. It makes it even harder to fit in if people don't even care where you're from and just make assumptions. Jin now experiences this first hand. He tries so hard to fit in and be normal. He goes as far as changing his hair to match the guys hair that Amelia likes. When he isn't noticed as much he wants to become someone else, someone who will fit in. He wakes up in the morning a new person, as he has transformed into someone he is not, he thinks to himself,”A new face deserved a new name. I decided to call myself...Danny”(198). He changed his race he didn't like his heritage and cultures so much

Maslin of the New York Times wrote a review saying that, “The kids each representing a different stereotype, come to understand each other. They strike up friendships” (Maslin). Labels and the status quo are things that fade after school and friends go, and that person you always called a misfit and ignored was probably a big

few friends in elementary school, but by high school was perceived as strange and a loner by his

I only stayed in that school for about two years until I changed schools again. Entering my eighth grade year in a public school system was very new to me. I was lucky enough to have cousins that went to that school and introduce me to their friends. I was happy that I had Hmong friends, that I was able to speak in my own native tongue again, and being more intuitive with my culture, but I still felt out of place when I was with them. Some things that I’d say or do, just didn’t click with them. I never gave up being friends with them due to them being my first real non-American friends. I had partially made connections with them, but I was also making, progress making friends with other ethnicities, trying to understand their culture, and how they lived their life. A lot of things changed within that year and as the years continued, I started to gain more friends. I know now that I will always have an equal amount of American and Asian friends with a view of how I’m in a world where I know that I will always feel at home. The other is how theses life experience has changed me. I will always be in between these two worlds, but one thing for sure is that I found my

I decided to go down a different route and go to a school that no one from my grade school was attending. I ended up at Maria High School on 67th and California an all-girl Catholic high school which was predominately African American and Hispanic. It was an entirely different environment for me. The hallways were filled with girls some of the teachers were nuns. Girls were speaking Spanish and others were speaking Lithuanian. I had friends from all different backgrounds and cultures but I still did not know who I was or identified as.

Going to an extremely small school growing up, there was not much room for us to express ourselves as individuals. We had the same friends, same teachers, and participated in the same events. Everything was a

Although people generate a separate profile for each individual they meet, sometimes the profiles are incredibly different. In high school everyone befriends many persons of different races, personalities, as well as social groups, yet we tend to befriend remarkably similar individuals. Rarely do we realize, some people are actually more different than we know. Freshman year, I entered into a world all different than what I was used to, but yet I made two amazing friends. Jessica and Amber both loved school, friends, and doing art outside of school. Although between them are many differences, but a few stand out from the others. College and work ethic, their personalities, and talents differ greatly.

Eddies fifth visitor was Tala. Tala was the little asian girl that Eddie thought he saw in the burning hut when he was in the Vietnam war. Tala explains to Eddie that he burned her and asks Eddie to wash her scabs. As Eddie started to wash Eddie saw all her scabs and her burns on Tala,but while he was washing all the wounds started to disappear. After Eddie had washed Tala she had shown her true beauty with her cinnamon hair.

Have you ever felt unwanted that you don't fit in and tried to be something you're not, just to fit in. In the novel, the characters learn the valuable lesson to not pretend to be someone or something you are not. This story is also very stereotypical. A lot of it is some of the things that happen today because of someone's background. The graphic novel American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang, is a more effective way of learning about the struggle of racism and changing physically and mentally to be accepted in society, because it uses three plot lines to explain the different, but similar stories and how the protagonists’ first learned the lesson of identity that they have to accept themselves before they expect others to accept their

I’ve been in school for 13 years of my life ,i grew up with most of the same kids; We were a huge family almost, everyone always looked out for eachother.  I was participating in a lot  activities. Since the beginning of freshman year, I participated 3 years of color guard, i met new people with the same interest as me. Almost every friday we had a football game and Saturday's was our competition days; we all bonded as a section when we all got ready and did each others makeup. Then,