In his essay titled Trans-National America, Randolph Bourne writes about the changes in American identity and ideals occurring at the time. He challenges the popular notion of America as a unique identity, one which outsiders must first shed their former identities to embrace. He advocates for transnationalism, a new idea that says that one can and should identify themselves as belonging to separate and equally valuable cultures. This idea of transnationalism and hyphenated identity are challenged in Sui Sin Far’s Leaves From the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian and by the character Mercedes from the film Lone Star.
Randolph Bourne wrote Trans-National America in 1916 amidst the turmoil of World War I. During this time, there was a fear of immigrants
…show more content…
In Leaves From the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian, she describes the challenges both internal and external of living in such a gray middle ground. On one hand, she is the ultimate manifestation of Bourne’s ideal. As the son of a Chinese mother and a white father, the hyphen is in her blood. Yet at the same time, she is a dilution of both. This is seen in her rejection by both the white and Chinese communities. Of her parents, she says “I am different to both of them – a stranger, tho their own child” (Far, 240). She is always sensitively aware of her transience, her lack of belonging in any place. “Why are we are what we are?” “I do not understand myself” (240). Ultimately she is left to a life of roaming, both literally and figuratively. “When I am East, my heart is West. When I am West, my heart is East” (249).
Mercedes, from the film Lone Star is yet another hyphenated American. A Latin American originally from Mexico, she however, makes every effort to deny the former half of her identity. In doing so, she rejects Bourne’s theory. Whether because of personal belief or personal experience, she still believes that the melting pot ideal of America is the only way to succeed. “In English” she demands from Enrique. “This is the United States. Speak English.” She also often wishes to call border police on Mexicans sneaking across the border and claims “we’re up to our ears” in
...the use of both the Spanish and English languages and the description of a meal of menudos, gorditas, and Coca-Cola symbolize Josie's two identities--Mexican and American.
In the first Chapter of the book ‘A Different Mirror’ by (Takaki, 1993) the author embarks on a descriptive narrative that tries to elaborate the concept of a multiracial America. The chapter begins with the author taking a taxi ride in which he is subjected to racial discrimination. The taxi driver questions the author’s origin owing to the fact that his English is perfect and eloquent. This incident prompts a discussion that transpires throughout the chapter as the author tries to explain to his audience that America is a multiracial country with different ethnic groups that moved from their homelands to settle in the United States. The chapter discusses the settlement of various racial groups such as; English immigrants, African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanos and the Irish.
Thru-out the centuries, regardless of race or age, there has been dilemmas that identify a family’s thru union. In “Hangzhou” (1925), author Lang Samantha Chang illustrates the story of a Japanese family whose mother is trapped in her believes. While Alice Walker in her story of “Everyday Use” (1944) presents the readers with an African American family whose dilemma is mainly rotating around Dee’s ego, the narrator’s daughter. Although differing ethnicity, both families commonly share the attachment of a legacy, a tradition and the adaptation to a new generation. In desperation of surviving as a united family there are changes that they must submit to.
An entire chapter of Eric Liu’s memoir, The Accidental Asian, is founded on the supposition that Jews today serve as a metaphor for assimilation into American culture. According to Liu, this is due to the ease with which Jews have been able to assimilate. However, the progress that Jews have made in embracing and affecting America has been gradual rather than instantaneous, as evidenced by the character Sara Smolensky in Anzia Yezierska’s novel Bread Givers. Sara is not the symbol of an assimilated Jew, but instead represents a period of transition between complete assimilation into American identity and complete dissimilation from her Jewish and Polish heritage, neither of which she can fully accomplish. Her identity was both “made” and “unmade” by her interaction with America, and she is left struggling for a new self that can interweave her ancestral past and her American present.
During the Progressive Era, our country was going through many changes and those changes have had numerous effects that are still apparent today. Theodore Roosevelt and Randolph Bourne both had very differing opinions about how citizens should be seen by themselves and their governments. The main difference between Roosevelt’s and Bourne’s theories on citizenship is the amount of domination and empowerment that was posed to the people. Roosevelt had thought that the people of American should only identify as American, even if they were born in another country. Bourne’s opinion was drastically different form Roosevelt’s by believing that the people of America should embrace their own cultures and share it with the rest of the country. Using Randolph Bourne’s “Trans-National America” and Theodore Roosevelt’s “True Americanism” this essay will show that over time Bourne’s idea of empowering the diversity of citizens has been more successful than Roosevelt’s idea of having a society that was more dominated by a the need for everyone to be the same.
In “Princess of Nebraska” the author exemplifies the disenchantment of America when she writes, “If only her baby were a visa that would admit her into this prosperity, Sasha thought, saddened by the memories of Inner Mongolia and Nebraska, the night skies of both places black with lonely stars”(79). Although America is unique in certain rights and freedoms, these freedoms just as anything else have limitations. Sasha feels unchanged by her new environment, still feeling unable to grow her sense of self or escape the problems she attempted to abandon in her old world. The prosperity of America does not keep Sasha from the loneliness and troubles that consume her life, thus making the “night skies” of America and China comparable. In “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers”, Mr. Shi has similar struggles coping with the anticlimactic realities of true America and his inability to provoke change within his relationship with his daughter. The narrator highlights the lack of communication and distance that still exists between them when stating, “He feels disappointed in his daughter, someone he shares a language with but with whom he can no longer share a dear moment”(194). Although Mr.Shi feels America should serve him the liberties to be a better
Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker expresses prominent themes of language and racial identity. Chang-Rae Lee focuses on the struggles that Asian Americans have to face and endure in American society. He illustrates and shows readers throughout the novel of what it really means to be native of America; that true nativity of a person does not simply entail the fact that they are from a certain place, but rather, the fluency of a language verifies one’s defense of where they are native. What is meant by possessing nativity of America would be one’s citizenship and legality of the country. Native Speaker suggests that if one looks different or has the slightest indication that one should have an accent, they will be viewed not as a native of America, but instead as an alien, outsider, and the like. Therefore, Asian Americans and other immigrants feel the need to mask their true identity and imitate the native language as an attempt to fit into the mold that makes up what people would define how a native of America is like. Throughout the novel, Henry Park attempts to mask his Korean accent in hopes to blend in as an American native. Chang-Rae Lee suggests that a person who appears to have an accent is automatically marked as someone who is not native to America. Language directly reveals where a person is native of and people can immediately identify one as an alien, immigrant, or simply, one who is not American. Asian Americans as well as other immigrants feel the need to try and hide their cultural identity in order to be deemed as a native of America in the eyes of others. Since one’s language gives away the place where one is native to, immigrants feel the need to attempt to mask their accents in hopes that they sound fluent ...
Alan Trachtenberg, professor of American studies at Yale and author of The Incorporation of America, argues that the system of incorporation unhinged the idea of national identity that all American’s had previously shared. As a result, incorporation became the catalyst for the great debate about what it meant to actually be American, and who was capable of labeling themselves as such. Throughout his work Trachtenberg consistently tackles the ideas of cultural identity and how those ideas struggled against one another to be the supreme definition of Americanism. This work not only brings to life the issue of identity, but it attempts to synthesize various scholarly works into a cohesive work on the Gilded Age. It demonstrates that concepts developed during the incorporation of the time period have formed the basis for the American cultural, economic, and political superstructure.
As we grow up one of the most important things we wish to discover is who we are as a person. Thus our understanding of our identity is vital in order to find our place in the world and is emphasised significantly in or modern culture. However trying to discover your sense of self can be a difficult time for any adolescence. Yet it can become even more complicated and stressful when you have to compete with drastically different cultural expectations. This is apparent in the children born to Asian Migrants in Australia; Author Alice Pung makes this abundantly clear in her memoir Unpolished Gem. This essay will explore how Pung has incorporated her struggle not only for own identity, but the strain of having to juggle the cultural expectations of her Asian family that she was raised with and the Australian culture she must live in, into her story.
...outcast group of that set range attempt to conform themselves. The meaning of who is an American continues to change gradually over time, embracing different cultures and races into that definition, but the task is nowhere near completion as long as the hyphenated racial classifications and double consciousness still exist.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
In the late 19th century America was grappling with who it was as a country. With African American's being freed with the end of the Civil War it did not make it any easier. Before the war America was predominately seen as a country run by Caucasians. While after the war African Americans were not necessarily treated any better. The war did not give America a sense of identity. African Americans were not treated any more equally. The search for an identity was not merely between black and white. It also involved the Native American culture. Alone each culture had there own identity. However, they were mixed together. This was confusing not only from the standpoint of one culture looking at another but, of the person that does not know they have a mixed heritage. Writers not only male and female but white and black wrote about the hardships of being the culture that was not liked. Through there stories George Washington Cable and Grace King are two writers of this era that depicted the hardships of searching for an identity.
In Maya Angelou’s Champion of the World and Amy Tan’s Fish Cheeks both convey their struggles with identity. Both authors are from minority cultures, and describe the same harsh pressures from the dominant culture. They share situations of being outcasts, coming from different racial backgrounds and trying to triumph over these obstacles. Tan and Angelou speak about the differences between their childhood selves and white Americans. Tan talks about the anxiety of a teenage girl who feels embarrassed about her Chinese culture, and who wants to fit in with American society. Angelou’s explains the racial tension and hostility between African and white Americans.
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
Before I was five, I thought I was Chinese. However, I wondered why I couldn’t understand the Chinese patrons of Chinatown restaurants. Upon learning my true ethnicity, I pulled out a mammoth atlas we had under the bed. My father pointed to an “S”-shaped country bordering the ocean, below China. It was then that I learned my parents were refugees from Vietnam. “Boat people,” my mother, still struggling to grasp English back then, would hear kids whispering when she walked through the halls of her high school. Like many refugees, although my parents and their families weren’t wealthy when they came to America, they were willing to work hard, and like many Vietnamese parents, mine would tell me, “We want you to be success.”