Analysis Of The Stolen Party And Liliana Heker's The Stolen Party

This essay provides a way to help better understand assimilation by comparing it to Liliana Heker’s “The Stolen Party.” How this essay does that is by taking to different views of assimilation one from Encyclopedia Americana 1993 and the other from The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology. Examples from “The Stolen Party” are used throughout the essay to make assimilation more clear. Also not only does it explain how Rosaura assimilates to the high society children but how she does the opposite of assimilating while she is at the party. The use of “cultural pluralism” also applies to Rosaura throughout the story in many of her efforts of assimilating with the other children. Assimilation often is another way of saying blending in, or becoming …show more content…
Despite the fact that the poor girl, Rosaura, may not fit in with the rich folk her friend Luciana accepts her. Luciana accepts her by inviting her to the birthday party and doing homework together. She never said anything mean to Rosaura or excluded her from the events during the birthday party. Though Rosaura is picked on by the girl with the bow, all the other children take a liking to her. She gets the other children to like her by winning the sack race, and never getting caught in the game of tag. The result of these two things makes all the boys at the party want to be on her team. This gave Rosaura a feeling of happiness and acceptance despite what the girl with the bow said to her. While trying to fit in with the children, Rosaura still sticks to her roots. She helps Señor Ines hand out hot dogs, and cut the cake and also hand it out. Rosaura relates to Encyclopedia Americana 1993 definition of “assimilation” by engaging in the activities that her peers are participating in and becoming liked by the other …show more content…
This means that Rosaura should do what the rich children do and not give off the vibe of being a poor maid’s daughter. If she does that than she would be able to fit in with all the children and not just Luciana. Some ways that Rosaura tries to fit in with the chilfren is by playing games with them such as tag, and competing in the sack race. Rosaura was the fastest in the sack race and was not caught while playing tag. This mad all the boys want to be a part of her team. Thus she was fitting in with the high class society children. Throughout the party Rosaura is asked to help with tasks such as handing out hot dogs, cutting cake, and handing out the cake. These actions go against what Blackwell says about “cultural pluralism.”It goes against that because the high class children do not help at the party with those tasks. Rosaura is asked to help because she knows the house better than anybody and that is the result of being a daughter of the maid. So even though she finds ways to fit in to the cultural norm she will never truly be part of the high class society as a child because of the way she is looked at for being the daughter of the maid. Rosaura finds ways to achieve “cultural pluralism,” but is not fully looked at as a part of the high class