When Asian came to America— a place where full of unfamiliar faces, speak different language, have different belief and culture, how would they respond and adapt to these changes? This essay investigates on Asian American experience in terms of culture, racial discrimination, culture assimilation and collision, and lost of identity through diverse motions in four Asian American poems- “Eating Alone”, “Eating Together”, and “Persimmons” by Li-Young Lee, and “The Lost Sister” by Cathy Song. From the motions or movement in the poems, we can further look into their life and feeling of being an Asian American. In “Eating Alone” and “Eating Together”, speaker would like to express his yearning towards his death father and convey the hierarchy of …show more content…
America is a white dominant society. Asian are recognized as abnormal. Asian American students often suffer from racial discrimination. (Young & Takeuchi, 1998). From the “Persimmons”, “Mrs. Walker slapped the back of my head and made me stand in the corner.” (Lee 2-3) Speaker was suffered from the physical punishment by his teacher just because he could not distinguish between two English words: persimmons and precision. As most of the Asian learn English as their second language, their English proficiency level may be low. As a result, they often being looked down by American natives. In “Lost Sister”, “Dough-faced landlords slip in and out of your keyholes, making claims you don't understand.” (Song 48-50) This shows that the relationship between Asian and American is not good, they did not develop trust. “Making claims you don't understand.” (Song 50) indicated that the white American would think that they are superior in the country and consider other nation to be inferior. Some white Americans would think that this group of Asians was intruder to their …show more content…
Women were not allowed to walk freely. “the daughters were grateful, they never left home.” (Song 10-11) The speaker used irony to satirize that women cannot have the right to determine their own fate as it is their parents to determine on their foot binding. The only thing that they can do is to accept with a “grateful” heart. On the other side of the Earth, another sister escaped to America to seek for freedom. America achieves a higher gender equality. The speaker used antithesis to illustrate that in China “they never left home” (Song 11) and in America “women can stride along with men” (Song 36), it demonstrated the women right in China and America. However, everything has its trade off. “relinquished her name” (Song 28), “diluting jade green with the blue of Pacific” (Song 29-30) the sister in America found that she felt lost of her identity. Jade is the most precious jewelry in China because, in the view of feng shui, jade has the power to protect from negative energy. Its value is determined by its color, the more emerald it is the more expensive. “Diluting jade green” means she felt lost of protection and identity from China. Thus, in the last stanza, she claimed that “need China” (Song 53), “one fragile identification” (Song 54), “a jade
She notes the history of Asian American organizations, from the early 1970’s, such as the Oriental Actors of America, Brotherhood of Artists, and the Asian/Pacific American Artists amongst a few which have came forth to express the discontent and inequalities in
The actions presented stereotypical comments about Asian students such as “aren’t you supposed to be good at math,”
The poem has life experiences of a fourteen-year-old girl who is caught between the Japanese and American culture. The young girl claims that she does not know how to use Japanese chopsticks that are symbolic of the Japanese culture. In fact, the girl claims that she understands more the hot dogs as opposed to using chopsticks (Rhea 7). This means that the girl seems to understand the American culture as opposed to her Japanese culture. The girl identifies more with the American culture and thus the issue of American identity.
Living as a Chinese-American, the narrator had to take on American attributes in order to be accepted -- for example, while normal Chinese women spoke with strong and assertive voices, the narrator adopted a whisper in order to appear “American-feminine. ”(1) As a result, however, her shy demeanor caused her to be an unpopular outcast. She saw herself in another Chinese-American girl at her school, as they had certain, negative similarities. “I hated the younger sister, the quiet one.
In this piece of literature we see this Japanese-American family suffer many injustices because of their race. Julie Otsuka does a magnificent job showing the family’s reaction to these injustices by switching
In the novel “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luen Yang (2006), it talks about three different people’s stories. The author starts off with telling a story about a monkey called the Monkey King, who lives in the jungle, seeking for higher power to become considered a god in the book. The author also tells a story about an American born Chinese boy named Jin Wang, who moves from San Francisco and struggles with fitting in at a new school. The last story the author tells is about a boy named Danny who has his cousin Chin-Kee from China visit every year. Danny ends up struggling to keep his reputation in adequate shape at school after his cousin visits causing him to switch schools often.
This paragraph from Kesaya Noda’s autobiographical essay “Growing Up Asian in America” represents the conflict that the author feels between her Japanese ethnicity, and her American nationality. The tension she describes in the opening pages of her essay is between what she looks like and is judged to be (a Japanese woman who faces racial stereotypes) versus what she feels like and understands (life as a United States citizen). This passage signals her connection to Japan; and highlights her American upbringing. At this point in the essay, Noda is unable to envision her identity as unified and she describes her identity as split by race.
Jin is faced with being one of the very few Asians at his Junior High School, while everyone else is American. Of course Jin is going to feel out of sorts, especially when his teacher introduces him to the class as “Jin Jang”, and saying “He and his family moved to our neighborhood all the way from China”, when Jin’s real name is Jin Wang and his family moved from San Francisco (30). Gene Luen Yang uses this humility to display that it takes a considerable amount of open
In the poem the narrator explains that she feels that she is more American than Japanese on the inside, but she is still Japanese, and is still seen as a threat to America. The narrator
Written works about American Identity are a very common theme amongst writers, including poet Dwight Okita and short-story writer Sandra Cisneros. Dwight Okita is famous for her poem “In Response to Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers,” in which the theme of American identity is portrayed through a 14-year-old girl. In a similar way, Sandra Cisneros’s short story is told by a young girl of Mexican heritage who prefers American culture—in sharp contrast to her deep-rooted Mexican grandmother. Although the overall theme of the two texts is “American Identity,” both Okita's poem and Cisneros's short story delve deeper and portray that cultural heritage and physical appearances do not determine what it
This becomes evident in a lack of information about the type of society, and the reader therefore lacks a complete understanding of how the women are oppressed. As a whole, this poem sets forth the idea that female gender is fluid, and asks its readers to questions what it means to be a woman in a male dominant
In the Story “Growing Up Asian in America” by Kesaya E. Noda, she discuss many of her life events that helped her become who she is today. Noda throughout the story struggles to find her true identity. She struggles to take her three identities, Japanese, Japanese-American, and Japanese-American- woman and make them all turn into one. A great example of Noda’s struggle to find out her identity in the Japanese culture would be, “My race is a line that stretches across the ocean and time to link me to the shrine where my grandmother was raised” (lines 44-45). This means that no matter where in the world she goes she will always be connected her family.
The speaker describes being prejudged on a more individual level, unlike the other poem. This type of discrimination was carried out by individuals belonging to a certain group, not the group overall. The similarities between the poems are that both speakers try to show themselves as typical Americans. The author of “In Response to Executive Order 9066” states, “If it helps any, I will tell you I have always felt funny using chopsticks and my favorite food is hot dogs” (650). The speaker seems to distance herself from her Asian culture and integrates into the American way of life.
That means that women do not have a lot of social standing or political standing in the government. The song gives off a
Amy’s song she was trying to relate to the woman who were in the same situation as her that had to take care of a man who is not willing to do nothing to better himself no matter what they do. In my point of view, women are stronger than me in every way but they make us feel like we are just so we give them the attention that they want us to give