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Roles Of Environment In The Development Of An Individual
Personal narrative about challenges
Personal narratives
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Those who adapt to their surroundings have a sense of self acceptance of where they’re from and where they are now. However, this is not always the case for the individuals we read about in the four autobiographies. As the different individuals reminisced about their past, we were able to identify key elements in the story that showed us how these different individuals were able to adapt to survive in their environments. In these autobiographies, we were able to get a glimpse of the different childhood lives these authors experienced. In “The Struggle to be an All-American Girl” by Elizabeth Wong, she talks about how she never really accepted her own Chinese culture and how she tried to fit in more with her Americanized society. She even felt like her language was the reason that she was embarrassed because it didn’t sound as pleasant as French or as gentle as the American South. When people spoke Chinese, to her it was lewd and obscene. She was then able to survive in her environment by having “cultural divorce” but in the end when she wasn’t one of them anymore, she ended...
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.
He, Qiang Shan. "Chinese-American Literature." New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. WEstport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996. 44-65.
What culture they had was to be forgotten – a difficult and practically impossible feat. The Chinese-Americans faced a wall of cultural difference that could only be scaled with the support of their parents and local community. The book review of Bone by Nhi Le stated clearly how “ … the first generations’ struggle to survive and the second generations’ efforts to thrive … ” made the transition into American culture possible. Overcoming barriers such as language, education, work ethic, and sex roles was just a beginning to the problems that all Asian – Americans faced.
Amy Tan’s ,“Mother Tongue” and Maxine Kingston’s essay, “No Name Woman” represent a balance in cultures when obtaining an identity in American culture. As first generation Chinese-Americans both Tan and Kingston faced many obstacles. Obstacles in language and appearance while balancing two cultures. Overcoming these obstacles that were faced and preserving heritage both women gained an identity as a successful American.
One striking similarity in the writings is that all characters lose their heritage over time. In “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl”, Elizabeth was forced to attend Chinese school by her mother to retain her Chinese heritage and to speak proficient Chinese. However, she hated the Chinese School and strongly preferred speaking English over Chinese. She...
As the four women entered America, which is far from their motherland China, they experience a change of culture, the American culture, which was dominant than the Chinese. The Chinese mothers are faced with a difficult task of how to raise their American-born daughters with an understanding of their heritage. The daughters clearly show a gap in culture between the Chinese culture and American culture. The mothers wanted their daughter to follow the Chinese traditions, but the daughters followed the American traditions and even some of them got married to American men. The mothers tried to tell their daughters the story about the Chinese ancestors but the daughter could not follow them and the daughters thought their mothers were backwards and did not know what they are saying. As much as the mothers tried to show love to their daughters, the daughters usually responded negatively. They often saw their mothers’ attempts to guidance as a failure to understand the American culture. Being Chinese and living in America, both the mothers and the daughters struggle with many issues like identity, language, translation, and others. The mothers try to reconcile their Chinese pasts with their American presents; the daughters try to find a balance between independence and loyalty to their heritage
The Chinese mothers, so concentrated on the cultures of their own, don't want to realize what is going on around them. They don't want to accept the fact that their daughters are growing up in a culture so different from their own. Lindo Jong, says to her daughter, Waverly- "I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise. This means nothing to you because to you, promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on T.V., she no longer has a promise."(Tan 42) Ying Ying St.Clair remarks- "...because I remained quiet for so long, now my daughter does not hear me. She sits by her fancy swimming pool and hears only her Sony Walkman, her cordless phone, her big, important husband asking her why they have charcoal and no lighter fluid."(Tan 64)
The second and third sections are about the daughters' lives, and the vignettes in each section trace their personality growth and development. Through the eyes of the daughters, we can also see the continuation of the mothers' stories, how they learned to cope in America. In these sections, Amy Tan explores the difficulties in growing up as a Chinese-American and the problems assimilating into modern society. The Chinese-American daughters try their best to become "Americanized," at the same time casting off their heritage while their mothers watch on, dismayed. Social pressures to become like everyone else, and not to be different are what motivate the daughters to resent their nationality. This was a greater problem for Chinese-American daughters that grew up in the 50's, when it was not well accepted to be of an "ethnic" background.
In analyzing these two stories, it is first notable to mention how differing their experiences truly are. Sammy is a late adolescent store clerk who, in his first job, is discontent with the normal workings of society and the bureaucratic nature of the store at which he works. He feels oppressed by the very fabric and nature of aging, out-of date rules, and, at the end of this story, climaxes with exposing his true feelings and quits his jobs in a display of nonconformity and rebellion. Jing-Mei, on the other hand, is a younger Asian American whose life and every waking moment is guided by the pressures of her mother, whose idealistic word-view aids in trying to mold her into something decent by both the double standards Asian society and their newly acquired American culture. In contrasting these two perspectives, we see that while ...
As a result, literature has to follow certain guidelines to be classified as Asian American; being placed in a box limits many great pieces of work to gain the recognition they deserve. As Wong and Sumida state, Asian American Literature is a presentation of American culture within Asian American history and culture, rather than a representation of the entire culture. “Asian Americans” is a large and complex, pan-ethnic group of people making it difficult to classify them all under the same stereotypes. Many Asian American works portray Asian Americans as “perpetual aliens or castaways whose cultures tumble nicely and helplessly” (4). This is because Asian Americans create their own culture, a hybrid of Asian culture and American culture, they don’t fully fit in with American culture just as they don’t fully fit in with Asian culture. Asian American Literature is a reflection of just that, it doesn’t fit into specific guidelines, breaking away from the labels that others create and making its own impact by culturing its readers on being Asian American. Whether the author is Asian American or is solely writing about Asian American culture, it still classifies as Asian American Literature
Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” describes Tan’s upbringing as a Chinese-American caught in between two cultures. In “Fish Cheeks” Tan’s crush Robert and his family were invited to Tan’s house for Christmas, Amy was embarrassed of Robert’s impression of her Chinese relatives, cuisine, and culture (Tan 110). Tan’s situation is not uncommon as millions of first generation Americans encounter similar situations while living within two cultures. Albeit the extreme embarrassment Tan endured throughout the encounter, she contends that her mother taught her a valuable lesson in appreciating her Chinese culture (111). Ultimately, Tan's purpose was to implore first generation Americans to embrace both of their cultures, in spite of its unique traditions (Tan
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.
“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.
Lindo Jong provides the reader with a summary of her difficulty in passing along the Chinese culture to her daughter: “I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix? I taught her how American circumstances work. If you are born poor here, it's no lasting shame . . . You do not have to sit like a Buddha under a tree letting pigeons drop their dirty business on your head . . . In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. . . . but I couldn't teach her about Chinese character . . . How to know your own worth and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring. Why Chinese thinking is best”(Tan 289).
...all Chinese, and the daughters are Chinese-American. The mothers grew up in a more strict environment and followed the rules by the book. They were taught by their mothers, how to act, who they were, and what being Chinese meant. The daughters in this story grew up in a more relaxed world, where being an individual was accepted and appreciated. No one was punished for being themselves in America. For the women in this novel, finding their true identity was one of the most important things. By using their cultural background and discovering who their mothers were, they were able to find their true selves in the end as well giving them a complete sense of identity.