Analysis Of The Struggles To Be An American Girl By Elizabeth Wong

In “The Struggle to be an American Girl,” Elizabeth Wong explores the journey to find an identity and a sense of belonging through the eyes of an immigrant child caught between two cultures. As a child, Wong rejects her cultural heritage in favor of attempting to blend in with the society around her, a decision that haunts her into adulthood. Wong’s desire to be American leads her to reject the traditions of her family, not realizing until she is older the significance of preserving those traditions and that to be all-American, she does not need to cast off the values passed down from her family. Wong describes her memories surrounding the critical time in her childhood in which she chose to find her own unique identity and rebelled against her culture, specifically her family’s Chinese language. She relates that her mother forced her to go to Chinese school and that even her “kicking, screaming, or pleading could not dissuade” her mother from making her attend (302). She remembers her hatred for the musty smell of the classroom and her disinterest in learning Chinese as it distinctly separated her from her idea of what it meant to be American (302). Wong feels shame …show more content…
Although Wong remembers her experience with her childhood Chinese school with mixed emotions, her overall tone is one of regret and sadness for something lost that cannot be recovered. “The Struggle to Be an American Girl” reminds us all of the significance of maintaining our unique cultural heritage and family traditions, and passing them onto our children regardless of whether or not they understand or appreciate them. Wong states “at last, I was one of you; I wasn’t one of them” (304). How wonderful it would be for our children to be included in both “us” and “them,” and appreciated and loved for their individualism and distinctive