As a Filipino-American first generation college student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I cannot help but wonder how far my family and I have come after our migration to the United States of America. I never thought that my life would drastically change when I was only thirteen years old. I thought I knew everything that I needed to know about the Philippines, but reading Dusk by F. Sionil José and When the Goddess Rainbow Wept by Cecilia Brainard gave me a deeper understanding of my roots and history. The more I read, the more similarities I find between me and the central characters of each novel. Istak’s and Yvonne’s migrations mirror my migration, yet at the same time, clash with my own ideals and beliefs. Dusk by F. Sionil José entails the story of Istak and his family from 1880 to 1889 during the end of the Spanish colonization era until the start of the American colonization of the Philippines. Istak, the main character, and his family are Ilocanos who move to southern Pangasinan in an effort to flee from Spanish …show more content…
Her life turns upside down when the Japanese invade the Philippines, and her family is forced to migrate and hide from the Japanese in a jungle. She encounters a collective suffering and tragedies from other Filipinos. Her father, an American-trained engineer, is an instrumental part of the resistance movement, which was called guerilleros. They hope for the United States to aid them to victory against the Japanese invasion, but things do not go the way they had wished for as the Americans dreadfully deceive the guerilleros. Yvonne and her family realize that it is up to them and their fellow Filipinos to fight for their country’s independence. The novel unveils similar themes in Dusk, such as religion, social responsibility, and Japanese and American
Ann Rinaldi has written many books for young teenagers, she is an Award winning author who writes stories of American history and makes them become real to the readers. She has written many other books such as A Break with Charity, A Ride into Morning, and Cast two Shadows, etc. She was born in New York City on August 27, 1934. In 1979, at the age of 45, she finished her first book.
...al Sam Gillis.” Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1982. 87. Print.
This novel is a story of a Chicano family. Sofi, her husband Domingo together with their four daughters – Esperanza, Fe, Caridad, and Loca live in the little town of Tome, New Mexico. The story focuses on the struggles of Sofi, the death of her daughters and the problems of their town. Sofi endures all the hardships and problems that come her way. Her marriage is deteriorating; her daughters are dying one by one. But, she endures it all and comes out stronger and more enlightened than ever. Sofi is a woman that never gives up no matter how poorly life treats her. The author- Ana Castillo mixes religion, super natural occurrences, sex, laughter and heartbreak in this novel. The novel is tragic, with no happy ending but at the same time funny and inspiring. It is full of the victory of the human spirit. The names of Sofi’s first three daughters denote the three major Christian ideals (Hope, Faith and Charity).
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.
A sheet of paper can wield more power than an army. In Wayson Choy’s novel All That Matters paper’s power is portrayed as a double-edged sword; where it acts both as a catalyst for change and opportunity, but also as a tool to imprison and constrain individuals. Although paper “represents a significant tool of diasporic mobility” states literary critic Alena Chercover in her analysis of Wayson Choy’s All That Matters, she argues that there is a significant trade-off in its ability to facilitate “survival in the diaspora, [as] it often carries a steep price”(12). This price that results from passage across “national, ethnic, gender and class boundaries” (Chercover 12) appears to weigh more on female immigrants. Immigration and the papers that facilitate it, tend to favor positive outcomes for males however, for many female immigrants the “ghost papers facilitate the bondage of Chinese women rather than freeing them from the strictures of home- or host-land” (Chercover 12). The character of Stepmother exemplifies how her “passage across national borders comes at the expense of her female agency, requiring in exchange the confinement of her body” (Chercover 13).
Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Theme three focuses on the Filipinos use of culture as a resistance or domination. In this context, Filipino culture and tradition is used as a method of maintain Filipino identity while resisting assimilation into the concept of ‘whiteness’. Specifically speaking, Filipino culture is used as a tool to point out the flaws they see in American culture. Additionally, it is a tool they use to steer their children away from the temptation of acting in a way that American culture is said to act; that is,
Writing in the 20th century was great deal harder for a Chicano then it was for a typical American at this time. Although that did not stop this author, Sandra Cisneros. One of her famous novels, Woman Hollering Creek was a prime example of how a combined culture: Mexican-Americans, could show their pride and identity in this century. In conjunction, gave the opportunity for women to speak their voice and forever change the culture of Latino/a markets. Not only did it express identity/gender roles of women and relationships, but using these relationships to combine the cultures of Mexican and American into a hybrid breed. This novel, should have been a view-point for the future to show that there is more to life than just gender and race. Concluding this, the articles that helps define this is “The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature” and “What is called Heaven”.
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
During 1910 and 1970, over six million blacks departed the oppression of the South and relocated to western and northern cities in the United States, an event identified as the Great Migration. The Warmth of Other Suns is a powerful non-fiction book that illustrates this movement and introduces the world to one of the most prominent events in African American history. Wilkerson conveys a sense of authenticity as she not only articulates the accounts of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, but also intertwines the tales of some 1,200 travelers who made a single decision that would later change the world. Wilkerson utilizes a variety of disciplines including sociology, psychology, and economics in order to document and praise the separate struggles but shared courage of three individuals and their families during the Great Migration.
Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island Immigrant Gateway to America. New York : Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
In “My Two Lives”, Jhumpa Lahiri tells of her complicated upbringing in Rhode Island with her Calcutta born-and-raised parents, in which she continually sought a balance between both her Indian and American sides. She explains how she differs from her parents due to immigration, the existent connections to India, and her development as a writer of Indian-American stories. “The Freedom of the Inbetween” written by Sally Dalton-Brown explores the state of limbo, or “being between cultures”, which can make second-generation immigrants feel liberated, or vice versa, trapped within the two (333). This work also discusses how Lahiri writes about her life experiences through her own characters in her books. Charles Hirschman’s “Immigration and the American Century” states that immigrants are shaped by the combination of an adaptation to American...
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.
Raya’s essay is an informative account of life for a multicultural American, because it is told from an actual multicultural author’s viewpoint. It gives the reader a sense that the information is accurate. It would be harder to accept the viewpoint if the author were for example, a white male writing about how a Mexican, Puerto Rican woman feels. As Connie Young Yu points out, information retold by someone who didn’t live the experiences is most often falsely perceived. Yu uses the example of white American historians writing about the lives of Chinese immigrants. Yu says that there is no accurate account for the lives of the immigrants, because they didn’t document their lives themselves. The little information that there is in history books only tells about their obvious accomplishments. There is no official understanding of their personal lives or feelings (Yu 30).
The Philippine Islands, an archipelago of 7,107 islands located between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea, is a country with a multitude of seven major ethnic groups and eight major dialects. In this regard, there exist subgroup differences as in other cultures, with respect to an individual’s ethnicity, dialect, and education, as well as age and gender.