Heritage And Culture In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

The 1970’s were a time of the change for women and African Americans in America. Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” gives readers a glimpse into some of the difficulties African American women faced and still face today. Alice Walker displays the difficulties to try to keep heritage, traditions, identity while being able to make political and societal change through her use of symbols, characters and theme. Many men and women over time have conformed to what society believes people should be and have lost a lot of their heritage and culture because they want to fit in. In an effort to recognize their original African culture some people lost their own personal family traditions and heritage. Some of the change experienced by African Americans made them feel as if they were losing their heritage. People were being forced to stop ‘being themselves’ and conform to what society wanted them to be. The character Dee changed her ideals to honor her heritage. Dee refused her birth name ‘Angero Leewanika …show more content…
Dee doesn’t understand that even though the family doesn’t necessarily honor their African culture, the family honors their own traditions they have made in America. The passing down of the quilt and Dee’s name represents their family traditions which, which Dee doesn’t think is as important as her African culture. The quote “You just don’t understand’, she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car. ‘What don’t I understand?’ I wanted to know. ‘Your heritage’ she said.”(816). The quote demonstrates the differences of how Dee feels about their family’s traditions and how her Mother feels about the family’s traditions. Dee’s need to honor her thoughts of her heritage, thanks to her husband, destroys the newer traditions her family has created. Instead of recognizing the ‘now’ of her family she dismisses the change in favor of the past, completely losing her family’s newer heritage and