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The american identity essay
Essay on American Identity
The american identity essay
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Before reading A DIFFERENT MIRROR by Ronald Takaki, the title probably illustrates an issue about images of people and where they come from, but what sets them alike is being human and the blood flowing though their veins. The book starts off of with Takaki going to Norfolk for a multiculturalism conference. He first starts off talking to taxi man who questions him ‘“How long have you been in this country?”’ and he answers “All my life” (1). Takaki gives the taxi man a preview about how he came to live here in the United States. Based off of that conversation, it seems that the taxi man who is in his late forties thought that he was not born in America due to his appearance. He judge Takaki as one who couldn’t understand nor speak english that well. In response humans shouldn't judge a book by its cover. The taxi man judged him as one who isn’t from the United States and couldn’t speak. At this point he realized that there was an “uncomfortably conscious of a racial” division ( Takaki 1). …show more content…
When he mentioned about this magazine, it illustrated how the United States isn’t a land thats filled with “white” supremacy, but who are considered to be part of the generation as a minority. In America, people set their mindset as if white were the one who discovered America, and were the one to set land
His article was towards the reader of the The New York Times which would imply most of the American population. He would have had to write his article differently if his target audience was just African American because of the way he says, “St. Paul de Vence, France--The argument concerning the use, or the status, or the reality, of black English is rooted in American history and has absolutely nothing to do with the question the argument supposes itself to be posing.”(Baldwin paragraph 1). He mentions St. Paul de Vence which ties into trying to connect to people that speak French and then mention it in his article. Making his argument toward almost everyone that reads The New York Times because if it was just towards African American or even people that discriminate against African-American, his tone would reflect it. The language he uses is casual like when he says, “Now, no one can eat his cake, and have it, too, and it is late in the day to attempt to penalize black people for having created a language that..” (Baldwin paragraph 6) This type of language can connect to any reader, because of how he incorporates his message, also conveying his message in a light-hearted way. The words seem light-hearted based on the way he transitions from dialect being related to culture to talking about African American culture and how it is being overshadowed by American culture. When speaking directly
1. What is the argument of Ronald Takaki’s A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America? How does Takaki make that argument?
Steven Gregory’s book entitled The Devil Behind The Mirror is an ethnographical study of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean, it occupies the Western half of an island, while Haiti makes up the Eastern portion. Gregory attempts to study and analyze the political, social and cultural aspects of this nation by interviewing and observing both the tourists and locals of two towns Boca Chica and Andres. Gregory’s research centers on globalization and the transnational processes which affect the political and socio-economics of the Dominican Republic. He focuses on the social culture, gender roles, economy, individual and nation identity, also authority and power relations. Several of the major relevant issues facing Dominican society include racism, sexism, and discrimination, economy of resort tourism, sex tourism and the informal economy. The objective of Gregory’s ethnographic research is to decipher exclusionary practices incorporated by resort tourism, how it has affected locals by division of class, gender, and race, increasing poverty and reliance on an informal economy.
Society has always judged its inhabitants for its outwards appearance; not taking in to consideration how a person has a deeper part to them. When just taking the superficial into consideration, we find ourselves looking at the blemishes and not the beauty. Judgment is thrown on those whom get old, although they cannot halt times effects. Judging those that were born with defects mental or physical that are portrayed in their visible areas. All these individualities are read into more than they should be. A mirror, on the other hand, shows what is standing in front of it and nothing else. Sylvia Plath’s poem Mirror does expresses the defects within society that judges those for their presence, it will lie to make a person’s thoughts of their appearance get altered, and that a mirror is clear looking at one with what can be compared with a gods eye; perfect, but even though the mirror sees one as unadulterated time still passes.
In A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki’s tenth chapter Pacific Crossings he talked about the Japanese immigrants entering in American soil. Like every other group, their purpose to come to America was for a better life and away from overbearing economic hardships. Unfortunately, the Japanese were instead faced with long hours, racial discrimination and low wages. On page 260, “Monica found that the Japanese were not welcome in America. She heard whites call her father “shorty” and “Jap” (Takaki 260). Even the second generation Japanese, painfully noticed, were denied a claim to the land of their birth. As stated in the chapter, the Japanese had a stronger and a more organized central government.
While I was reading chapter five of A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki, I was struck with an epiphany. There was a specific quote that stuck out the me the most at the beginning of chapter. “Victims of discrimination, segregation, and violence, northern African Americans encountered a powerful cluster of negative racial images. These stereotypes contributed to the conditions of racial degradation and poverty, which in turn, reinforced prejudice.” (Takaki, ).
In The Lie by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Eli Remenzel is a thirteen-year-old boy on his way to The Whitehill Preparatory School with his parents. Little do they know that Eli is keeping a big secret from them: he didn’t get accepted to the school. As the story unfolds Eli finally cracks under the pressure of the lie as the headmaster informs his parents that he wasn’t accepted at Whitehill. What happens next is a disaster. As I was reading the story I noticed a lot of qualities in the different characters that are traits I see in myself. Eli, his mother Sylvia, and his father Doctor Remenzel all have different characteristics that reflect me. These characteristics are what blend together to make me a unique individual.
"Negro writers must accept the nationalist implications of their lives, not in order to encourage them, but in order to change and transcend them. They must accept the concept of nationalism because, in order to transcend it, they must posses and understand it."
In the given passage from Mirror for Man, Clyde Kluckhorn explains the similarities and differences between cultures by first defining the anthropological concept of "culture" and then explaining his definition.
...icit in the cause of white supremacists, and is in fact as personally involved with the subject of his scholarly article as Wright is with his own less academic essay. Phillips’s evidentiary support is subject to a striking caveat, one which puts almost any source to work for his purposes, “When…slavery was attacked it was defended not only as a vested interest, but…as a guarantee of white supremacy and civilization. Its defenders did not always take pains to say that this was what they chiefly meant, but it may nearly always be read between their lines.” This has the effect of providing an assumed motive for all of his sources; Phillips’s reader also begins to ‘read between the lines.’ The most troubling aspect of his article is that, in the guise of a serious historian, he twists historical fact to suit his thesis, rather than suiting his thesis to the facts.
"The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror./ It grasps nothing. It regrets nothing./ It receives but does not keep."- Chuang Tzu. For the majority of this play, Richard the Third is the embodiment of this quote. He has no regrets and does not show any remorse for the terrible things he does. Yet he is revered and becomes king. How? Richard is capable of presenting different faces to the outside world. He shows people what they want to see. He is able to reflect people back onto themselves; he is a mirror. This is the charm that allows him to manipulate the people and the situations he is around.
America is a very prominent country that has many values and characteristics that define our society. Two of the main factors that is associated with the core American values are individualism and self-reliance. The United States is known to be a country of freedom where it is easy to express personal beliefs and strives for independence. The Distant Mirrors book displays the origins and ideals of the individualism perceived in America.
Literature can probably change the world's thoughts on many things, and racial inequality may be one of them. For this to work, a book needs whites as an audience. But not just any whites- rac...
looked at it so long I think it is part of my heartâ?¦Faces and darkness
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter who was one of the founding fathers who introduced the world to Cubism. Cubism is a form of painting that features simple geometric shapes. His work was always bold and abstract. The idea of Cubism is to take an object and break it down into smaller pieces to re-create different shapes representing different perspectives and ideas at the same time. One cannot look at his artwork and not feel the need to analyze it. Picasso painted the now famous Girl Before a Mirror in March 1932. So, who exactly was the girl before the mirror and why are we able to relate to this painting?