Seventeen Syllables by Hisaye Yamamoto

The piece describes what she envisioned her time in China would be like; visions of small talk and drinking tea danced in her head (Schmitt 125). This is a bit admirable to a more reserved person because it shows how outgoing she is when diving into a new culture. However, the reality of a language barrier and day to day behavior settled in. A series of uncomfortable exchanges illustrate the challenge of being accepted into a new culture. Described in the essay are people standing around in bath robes and under garments and popping in and out of rooms like some sort of clown

Authors in “We Don’t Sleep around Like White Girl’s Do” are looking at the relationship between Filipino immigrant parents and their daughters. It shows how gender socialization occurs. The author in this research uses epigraphs, or statements, by a Filipina immigrant mother and her second-generation Filipina daughter, stating things like “we don’t date like white girls date” and “I don’t like them to grow up that way, like the American girls.” These suggest that the Filipina daughter is taught to believe that White women are sexually unethical. It shows that their required “morality” and the sexuality of women, are crucial to the shaping of social differences. Furthermore, it claims that gender is a key to immigrant identity, and a way for immigrants to claim cultural authority over the dominant Americans.

Through the personal stories of his hair, love life, and behavior, Liu is able to show the effects of his assimilation. The second section deals with Liu’s struggles to conform to white stereotypes as an Asian American. With his personal anecdotes, he establishes himself as a more credible source to speak on the subject of assimilation. The second section uses narration to provide evidence about Liu’s definition of assimilation.

The author utilizes overwhelming amount of excerpts from private letters that were both sent by and sent to Noguchi, exploring the use of language extensively. Drawing most of quotes from private letters of Noguchi and exploring the usage of terms and affection behind the usage, the book reads like a fine storybook; however, such heavy quotes on letters and explanation of language have made reader, I, to be confused whether this is a book about a life of a person or a book about general depiction of Japanese immigrants of the time. Even though it was pleasant to read beautiful language, mostly due to sharp contrast to languages of other literatures that we read, it made both easy and challenging to see the

This narrative speaks volumes about the author’s culture, which describes her religion, as well as the lifestyle of typical Hispanic families. In Latino or Chicano culture, we find that gender as well as religion plays a huge role in the lives of many individuals, causing them to shape a stereotypical kind of culture. Catholicism is one of the major forms of religion in Hispanic and Latin countries due to the influence from the Europeans. This made many of the Latin American Countries adopt this religious practice regardless of their belief. To this day, many practice Catholicism as a way to appeal to cultural norms. We see the importance of religion to the girl’s family, especially her father. Throughout the story we see the girl’s search for her own religious relationship through her abuela instead of the one forced upon her by her parents. The other influence that culture has is on gender roles within the family dynamic. Throughout the story we see the girl made fun of for her hands and for being different. This is because in latin culture girls are supposed to be dainty and gentle. They were not meant to be violent or rash, like the young teenage girl was. The gender roles constructed by culture were what her father tried to assign her into, and her mother enforcing them,

He realizes that her strict codes of Japanese loyalty were not the only things keeping him from assimilating. Since Ichiro can’t look to his parents for help, and he often isolate himself from friends, he does not take his friends social support and advise. “They all say:’ don’t let others tell you who you are… you get to decide.” If you feel like an exile, and a refugee, then rethink yourself! Make yourself a new life- give yourself a new sense of “home” or “community” via your network of friends. Get a job, or go to school. Make yourself “whole” by choosing!”(Okada, 119). The people around him, from his own family to most of his old friends, cannot understand the internal dilemma of identity and purpose that he is facing and at the same time, he cannot understand their thoughts and behaviors demonstrated through his dialogue with them.

The Japanese and their rabid ethnocentrism have their effect on the narrator’s family. The family is generally happy and well structured. The narrator lives with his mother, father, little sister and grandfather. As mentioned before, the narrator’s family pressures him to be better than the Japanese students. Upon returning home after being beaten, the men of the house invite him to eat with them and drink wine. This is a strong scene that is filled with the proudness of a parent for their son. Simply standing up to a

Sandra Cisneros’ short story, “Never Marry a Mexican”, indirectly underlines her perspective, her interpretation, judgement, and critical evaluation of her subject, the work and its title. This perspective is evident in her use of literary devices, diction, and language structure in her narrative. The purpose of the use of these elements in the way that she does is ultimately linked to understanding her viewpoint on the subject. The author’s perspective is embedded in the meaning of the story and its theme. Her interpretations are valid, and justified in detail throughout the story to add color and vibrancy to her characters. Her judgment is lightly touched upon but only clearly and directly given at the end of the story, to allow the

Dinaw Mengestu, Richard Rodriguez and Manuel Munoz are three authors that have been through and gone through a lot of pain to finaly get accepted in their societies. They are all either immigrants or children of immigrants that had trouble fitting in America’s society at the time. They struggled with language and their identities, beucase they were not original from the states and it was difficult for others to accept them for who they are. They all treated their problems differently an some tried to forget their old identeties and live as regulalr Americans others accepted themselves for being who they are, but they all found a way to deal with their issues.

Again, the story shows lots of examples in how the Sandoval family had to go through many discriminating acts. At the end of the Story Mariana, daughter of Pete, Granddaughter of Neftali falls in love with an Anglo Rich boy who never learned to accept Mariana because she was Mexican. Society has characterized Mexican Americans as unintelligent, dirty, and lazy people, therefor seeing an Anglo male with a Mexican girl was not common, and even if one did not think that at the time, Anglos were still embarrassed to be seen interacting with Mexicans, which could potentially degrade their name. Marianas Boyfriend David makes Mariana get an abortion on chapter seven, promising her a future; even though, Striver was planning on leaving Mariana after the abortion and planned to start a new life. This part of the story is absolutely saddening because Mariana died, thinking Stiver loved her, and was going to have a future with her. Mariana is not one only unfortunate girl who had this happen to her, but a Mexican woman during this era was only seen for maids, prostitutes, factory/field workers, or simply nothing. This shows the indifference Mexican American woman had to face, which was much different that Anglo woman.

1-Mika, a Japanese woman, came from a high socioeconomic status, where her father is a political official and her mother spends the time helping him with political issues. Although she was closer to her grandmother when growing up, her parents’ statuses had an impact in her life. In Japan, her social status was very important and provided her with many benefits such as recognition. After moving to this country, she began to experience a feeling of isolation. The process of adaptation to a new culture is very difficult for immigrants. In the case of Mika, she had to live through this process, deal with the fact that her socioeconomic status had changed, and the language barrier. She also expressed that she did not feel accepted by her classmates

Throughout our lives, many individuals experience being a foreigner (sometimes in their home country). No matter an individual's opinion on this piece, they can relate and reflect on the topic. Being a foreigner can be both a pleasant or uncomfortable experience, and Pamela Z illustrates both in this piece. I found this piece difficult to listen to because it was broken into section. If this piece was in one viewing, it might have easier to follow.

To emigrate from one’s country of birth and travel to a foreign country with completely different rules and culture is a hard thing to do. Some assimilate quickly to the customs, while others desperately try to hang on to their heritage. This is the central theme in the short story “The Third Dumpster” that has been written by Gish Jen in 2013.

Zitkala-Sa’s autobiography informs her readers of the damaging and traumatizing effects of assimilation by utilizing her life experiences as a narrative, demonstrating how living under an oppressive and dominant culture was an internal struggle between society's expectations and her own cultural identity. Sa’s experience is especially unique considering her mixed heritage as well.

A person’s heritage and cultural identity may be lost when moving to a new country where the culture is different and other cultures are not easily accepted. In the short story “Hindus”, Bharati Mukherjee uses setting, characters and the plot to discuss what it is like to lose your cultural identity while being a visible minority in America. Mukherjee uses the plot to describe the events that take place in the main characters life that lead her to realize how different the culture and life is in the America’s. She also uses the characters as a way of demonstrating how moving away from one’s culture and heritage can change a person’s perspective and ways of thinking. Mukerjee also uses setting in her story to identity the physical differences in culture between living in India and America. Alike the setting and characters, the plot helps describe the loss of culture with a sequence of events.