Essay On Mericans By Sandra Cisneros

The argument over what it means to be American is an old one, yet still lives today. The two texts, "Mericans" by Sandra Cisneros and “In Response to Executive Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers" by Dwight Okita, address this argument. Both of the texts assert that cultural heritage and physical appearance do not define the American identity. However, they make this claim in slightly different ways, as explored in this essay. In the story "Mericans" by Sandra Cisneros, the narrator and her siblings seem detached from Mexican culture. The narrator herself shows disdain for her grandmother's religious devotion and use of Spanish, referring to her as "the awful grandmother". There are also several references to American culture such as popular foods, comic books, and television shows. It is also shown that the children prefer speaking English rather than Spanish, and refer to themselves as "Merican". All of these things point to the narrator and her siblings identifying more with American culture than Mexican culture. In the poem “In Response to Executive Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers" by Dwight Okita, the narrator talks about her life as an …show more content…
In each text, evidence of the narrators' attachment to American culture is given in the form of references to food and popular themes in American society. However, Okita's poem mainly uses her best friend and facts about herself to show this, while Cisneros's story uses "the awful grandmother" and references to popular American culture. Furthermore, in Cisneros's story the grandmother is a tool to contrast the narrator's American identity with her Mexican heritage. Okita's story does not use as much contrast and instead draws similarities between the narrator and the average American