The poem “Mama” by Claire Kageyama introduces the reader to the life of a Japanese immigrant who immediately becomes a wife upon her arrival to America. The poem goes through the stages of her life as wife, mother and grandmother. The poem is told from the perspective of the “rice child”, (the youngest grandchild in the extended family). The “rice child” shares with the reader the many stereotypes the world has about families from different culture. “I followed her/ to Save & Save/ where we picked up/ packages of rice tea” (Kageyama 20-23).…
Born in the United States to Hmong immigrants from Laos (that didn’t speak English), Fadiman describes the Lee’s (along with thousands of other Hmong) experience, interchangeable lack of communication and understanding between them and Americans. Fadiman emphasizes in most of the book Hmong customs, culture, and spiritual practices. She allows readers to form their own unbiased opinion on the Hmong community. Being in the majority and studying a minority helps me as a reader form a more informative opinion about Lia and her family. Without this information she provided my views on Hmong family parenting would have taken another…
One of the common representational strategies that is used in My America… or Honk if you love Buddha is how some of the Asian Americans compare themselves to first-generation Asians. In the documentary, a Mr. Choi appears, and he is described as someone who works for a fortune cookie company, teaches martial arts, and does other tasks that are often associated with the “good oriental” image that Xing describes in “Cinematic Asian Representation.” Meanwhile, Victor Wong, who was born in San Francisco, describes himself as the “Wong that went wrong,” and is an Asian who actively takes part in the arts. Despite working together in the past, Choi practices the stereotypes that are often imposed on Asians, while Victor breaks these stereotypes.…
In the memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner, by Bich Minh Nguyen, we can see the cultural struggles refugee children have growing up in America. Nguyen's life starts off fleeing to Michigan with her family from the Vietnamese war in 1975 when she was just eight months old. Throughout the novel, Nguyen's family lives an average life that consists of her grandmother Noi, her older sister Anh, uncles and a father that works endlessly for a small place to shelter in. Until her father meets Rosa, a Mexican American single mother, life gets harder for Nguyen when she has to learn to balance each culture to survive. Overall, Nguyen was born with a love for food, however, she see’s it as a sign of social status and because of this, she is influenced to neglect her Vietnamese identity and uses books to escape her reality.…
Nothing is more inherent and constant to the human experience than childhood, it is impossible to become a person without first developing a sense of self and a way of being. And it is impossible to do that without first being young. We spend our childhoods dealing with the conflict between our internal personal values, and the variety of external values and expectations pushed upon us. Both Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese and Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye deal with children and young adults wrestling with their relationships with their own ideals and the unreachable expectations but on them by their parents, and peers, but also the culture as a whole.…
Jong is trapped by her old cultural pressures and pride. She has the power to help her child, but instead, she puts a strain in their relationship. Mrs. Jong is an immigrant from China, while Waverly is a first-generation Chinese-American growing up in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the United States. Mrs. Jong cannot understand or speak English very well with her children, which is one barrier in her relationship with her children. It’s her pride and the cultural pressures and traditions of her old country that cause her to be strict towards Waverly.…
There are four significant lessons from Kindergarten that have survived in my memory over the course of my lifetime: how to sculpt a vase out of paper mâché, the recipe for making blue Play-Doh, all of the ways a rock can be decorated to look like a farm animal, and most importantly, how to perfectly recite the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States with correct form and proper etiquette. All of these lessons have lived in the obscure recesses of my mind for approximately 15 years, but the fourth lesson has been exercised much more frequently and certainly introduced to the lives of every other individual in America beside myself. Almost like clockwork, our muscle memory reminds us, when appropriate, to stand up, remove any headwear, place…
I have noticed certain themes or aspects of concern among Asian American Film. Even though it is made in America, the films present their unique traditional culture. Xing explains that this is because the filmmakers are aware of who they are and where they are originally from, in other words, their “identity”. Through films, Asian Americans want to show their life in America and how they have adapted the new culture while preserving their own roots. For example, in the movie, “Flower Drum Song”, Mei Li immigrated to America for an arranged marriage with Sammy Fong.…
I am a daughter of two second generation immigrants. I am a first generation Asian American daughter. My grandmother was the first generation immigrant. My grandmother was the hero in this story. We are immigrants.…
The individual identity is influenced by numerous factors, but the family is the primary group that influences behavior and personality. In this world of countless cultures, childhood development is implemented differently, such that it is based on the culture’s values. An individual’s behavior and personality is not only influenced by the values of a culture; but, also the family structure and forms of discipline. In childhood development, discipline consists of punishments and controls. Two predominant examples that differ in childhood development are Hispanic families and American families.…
common in later immigrant generations as if it is an Americanized thing. While talking back is not what Angelica hopes Patty learns to do she does hope that Patty learns to defend and express herself as a way of protection. The differential in parenting styles between these different generations is also seen when I asked Patty for an example of a punishment she considered unfair. Patty responded with, “this would be when my mom took my phone away for talking back despite coming home with straight A’s and not getting into any type of trouble.…
He gives a lot statistics and example to prove his disagreement about the false image of Asian Americans. He tries to make people see that Asian Americans are facing many problems in their lives like other minorities. He stated in the essay “More than three-quarters of Korean greengrocers, those so-called paragons of bootstrap entrepreneurialism, came to America with a college education. Engineers, teachers, or administrators while in Korea, they became shopkeepers after their arrival” (124). The reader can see for Korean Americans, those are setbacks on their status.…
Sometimes I am curious about what the many different groups of minorities feel like in the United States. For example, their struggles, emotions, and actions they choose to make while trying to adjust to a new environment. Eric Liu’s memoir The Accidental Asian demonstrates just that. It depicts the double consciousness, social structures, instances of identity confusion, and the agency a second-generation Chinese American experiences.…
In Elizabeth Wong’s story, The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl, she reveals denial and shame towards her parent’s culture to illuminate the importance of having multiple cultures in a person’s life. Though reading this story one can discover her denial towards her Chinese culture was because she just wanted to integrate and be like the rest. The majority of children will be forced into ideas that are presented and taught by the parents. The parent is only passionate to keep the traditions that are passed down through generations. This is where high expectations are enforced by the family members which could lead to pressure.…
Introduction to Gramsci’s Notion of Ideological Hegemony Antonio Gramsci’s concept of Hegemony in many contexts, has been defined as the presentation of the definition of reality and view of the world by the dominant classes.1 Currently, Hegemony continues to exist in Political and Civil societies where the dominant party’s preferred ideology is supported by obtaining the consensus of the population.2 Hence, beliefs, explanations, values and more are influenced by the dominant, where its worldviews are obtruded and acknowledged as the society’s cultural norm.3 Political societies observe political hegemony, where the states’s ideology gains support mainly by coercive ways. Whereas for civil societies, cultural hegemony is practised,…