#20 Casey Lam
Business Administration, Period 2
March 18, 2014
Vera Wang
Idea/Service/Project
Vera is mainly known for her gorgeous wedding dresses. She has produced various gowns; each with their unique design. Because it catered to so many peoples’ interests, Vera began to design more than just wedding dresses. She started to make evening gowns. Celebrities quickly started to endorse her products so much so that Vera started to create accessories and outfits for men as well. Her collection for men is called “Black by Vera” while her collection for women is called “White by Vera.” Since her clothes are very tasteful, yet expensive, she decided to create a collection that was very simple, chic and affordable for a large majority of their audience. Another one of her projects was her very own book. This book was called Vera Wang on Weddings. In this book, Vera talks about how to plan the perfect wedding as well as how to look like the perfect bride.
Family Circumstances
Vera’s dad was the son of a Chinese general while her mom was the daughter of a Chinese politician. Her father spoke fluently in English. After leaving China after World War II, Vera’s mother and father got married and lived in New York City. They gave birth to Vera and 18 months later, a boy named Kenneth. Vera’s mother absolutely adored fashion as well as Vera did. She even attributes it all to her mother. Even though Vera’s father owned a company y that was worth millions of dollars, her parents still taught their children how to earn things for themselves. They were not given any special treatment regarding their athletics or academics. Vera had to work hard...
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...o say in the process. There were times when Vera felt unhappy with her marriage. After all, she never really wanted to get married in the first place. She always thought she was going to end up like a fashion nun like the generations before. Fashion nuns were fashionistas who never got married and just continued their life, eating, sleeping, and breathing clothes. Then, after multiple encouraging conversations with her friends, Vera decided to get married. However, Vera Wang announced that the couple separated amicably in July 2012. There is no clear-cut reason as to why the couple wanted a divorce, but rumors say Becker was tired of just being known as “Mr. Vera Wang” even though he ran Vera’s business and helped her for 23 years when she was struggling. On Vera’s end, reporters say that she was having a thing with an Olympian boy toy.
Three Connections
June-May fulfills her mother’s name and life goal, her long-cherished wish. She finally meets her twin sisters and in an essence fulfills and reunites her mother with her daughter through her. For when they are all together they are one; they are their mother. It is here that June-May fulfills the family portion of her Chinese culture of family. In addition, she fully embraces herself as Chinese. She realizes that family is made out of love and that family is the key to being Chinese. “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.” (Tan 159). Finally, her mother’s life burden is lifted and June-May’s doubts of being Chinese are set aside or as she says “After all these years, it can finally be let go,” (Tan 159).
She honored her parents as she should, but longed for them to pass. In the beginning of the story she said "I had never expected my parents to take so long to die.” She had taken care of them all of her life she was in her fifty’s and her parents in their ninety’s. She was ready to live and break free of all the rules and duties put upon her, they were like chains binding her and holding her down. She was ready to explore to go on journeys and adventures she was already aging all she wanted was to be free. Her parents’ death let her run free, she left Hong Kong to start over and maybe find love, in any way possible, maybe even through food or luxuries. She wanted to be rebellious of her parents I’m sure she knew they wouldn’t approve but she didn’t care she wanted change. All her life she had followed so many rules, she had to fight to teach, to learn, to be with friends, her fight was finally over. She now had no one to rebel against, she now had the freedom to
In the story Jubilee by Kirstin Valdez Quade A young very bright Latin American woman, Andrea, struggles with feeling like she’s been accepted in today’s society despite all of her achievements. These feelings tend to peak and turn negative whenever she’s around the family of her father’s lifelong employer, the Lowells, and in particularly their daughter Parker. Although the Lowells, as a whole seem to love Andrea and her family, she finds that their success and good fortune directly correlates to her family’s second rate citizenship. This story reveals that obsession with being accepted as an equal can be an ever increasing stressor that can severely damage a child’s identity, social skills and ultimately lead to misplaced resentment and
Throughout the centuries, regardless of race or age, there have 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 beliefs. While Alice Walker in her story “Everyday Use” (1944) presents the readers with an African American family whose dilemma is mainly revolving around Dee’s ego, the narrator’s daughter. Although exibiting different ethnicity, the reader should meditate that both families commonly share the attachment of a legacy, a tradition and the adaptation to a new generation.
In Outliers, Gladwell showcases Louise Farkas studies of New York immigrants family trees. Farkas found that many families who worked in the garment industry would, by generation, climb up the ladder of the industry. For example, Farkas recounts a tailor whose children all became garment makers or a leather tanner with kids who grew up to become bag makers. This correlation exemplifies Chanel’s advantage of family history in the garment industry. Growing up with parents who had even a rudimentary knowledge of the industry she would later go into gave Chanel an edge that would not be realized for years to
For many of us growing up, our mothers have been a part of who we are. They have been there when our world was falling apart, when we fell ill to the flu, and most importantly, the one to love us when we needed it the most. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, it begins with a brief introduction to one mother’s interpretation of the American Dream. Losing her family in China, she now hopes to recapture part of her loss through her daughter. However, the young girl, Ni Kan, mimics her mother’s dreams and ultimately rebels against them.
As the girls grew up in their respective locations of the world, whether Puerto Rico or New York City, they faced the trauma of change, culture clash, ethnic identity, and their parental influence.
One girl who chases the American Dream is Lena Lingard, a small farm girl from a poverty-stricken family. "Lena gave her heart away when she felt like it, but she kept her head for her business and had got on in the world." (192). Lena had one thing on her mind: money. To her the American Dream was wealth. She wants freedom from worry about where her next meal would come from. Lena begins her journey to wealth by becoming one of the many hired girls in the town of Black Hawk. There she was apprentice to a dressmaker and before long began to show great potential. Soon she began making money with her hard work, dedication and talent, but she uses this money not to indulge in her own desires, but to benefit her family. She spent her excess funds buying clothes for them, and paying their bills. But this wasn't enough to gain society's approval. She is a hired girl. Because she went to many dances over the summer months, many young men began noticing her, as they never had before. Because of this Lena earns a reputation like those of the hired girls; that ...
Jeannette Walls was born into a poor family who often had to live homeless and without food. The environment in which she grew up in is what gave her the characteristics she possesses. One trait that describes Jeannette is that she is very adventurous. Since she was constantly exposed to new surroundings, she became curious of them. While she was homeless in the desert, she would play a game with her father called Monster Hunting. She grew to not be afraid of anything, since she could fight off these so called “monsters.” Also, Jeannette is very decisive. To get away from Welch, a poor town in West Virginia, she made sure that she would get enough money to move to New York. She did this by getting a job to save up money for a bus ticket and for college. Along with this, Jeannette is very ambitious. She worked very hard to get accepted into college by working for the school newspaper, since she wanted to become a journalist. On the other hand, Melba Patillo was born into a middle class family who lived in Lit...
The lady telling this story is in her thirties. Both her parents are from China, her mother
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.
Noramay Cadena, at the age of 13, gets the experience of the work that her parents did as a bungee cord factory workers. She hated the job and wanted to do something big in her future. Being, good in academics, someone tells her to go for engineering. Even though she didn't know what engineer was , she decided to go for it. She moved 3 thousand miles away from her home to Massachusetts Institute of Technology with her daughter to get a bachelor's degree and then master degree in engineering. she even does MBA from the MIT and works for improving the working conditions in factories. Her daughter, Chassitty got inspired by her moms' struggle and she learns to have faith in her ability ,and to prove doubters wrong.
America was not everything the mothers had expected for their daughters. The mothers always wanted to give their daughters the feather to tell of their hardships, but they never could. They wanted to wait until the day that they could speak perfect American English. However, they never learned to speak their language, which prevented them from communicating with their daughters. All the mothers in The Joy Luck Club had so much hope for their daughters in America, but instead their lives ended up mirroring their mother’s life in China. All the relationships had many hardships because of miscommunication from their different cultures. As they grew older the children realized that their ...
“Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strengths to establish realities”(5). In the book “The Woman Warrior,” Maxine Kingston is most interested in finding out about Chinese culture and history and relating them to her emerging American sense of self. One of the main ways she does so is listening to her mother’s talk-stories about the family’s Chinese past and applying them to her life.
The “little black dress” has become a staple for every woman’s wardrobe. It was designed to be simple, versatile and affordable. The “little black dress” was cut in a black crepe with a high neckline, long fitted sleeves and hemline that stopped just above the knee and paired well with long white pearls. It was known as a fashion basic that every woman must have in her wardrobe. The concept for the dress was that it could be worn during the day as a more casual outfit or dressed up as elegant evening wear. Although the color black was previously used for mourning she made it chic and