Young Immigrants Struggles in “Water by the Spoonful”: How Contemporary United States Recognize Multiracial Americans
The United States is often compared as a ‘Melting Pot’ due to its diverse race. It was aimed to create an ‘Americanized’ society where different cultures, languages, and religions blend and compose a unique national identity (Hakan 4). However, recent studies reveal that the increasing cultural diversity in the United States is threatening the long-existing belief of American national identity (Schildkraut 611). In other words, immigrants switch their identity while focusing on “concepts like ‘kinship’ or ‘native land’” instead of abandoning their cultures to become fully assimilated into American society (Čiubrinskas 62).
…show more content…
Elliot and Yaz meet each other to arrange flowers for Ginny’s funeral. Together, they look at the floral brochure and start talking about how it looks like “Mom’s garden” (Hudes 30). Looking closely at the image of a garden, Elliot looks back on the times with unpleasant feelings. They also discuss about going to Puerto Rico to “scatter her ashes together” as Ginny wished “at a waterfall in El Yunque” (Hudes 32). Even though Ginny never appears in the play – she is dead – her presence makes Elliot and Yaz implicitly relate their identity to a Puerto Rican. The family’s linchpin Ginny evokes the familial spirit in Elliot and Yaz. Ginny knew exactly how to pass on the Puerto Rican identity to the next generation. The garden, serving as a symbolic place, acts as a powerful trigger, evoking memories, and connections to the Ortiz’s Latin heritage. While it may involve a long travel, the experience of going home will create a lasting definition of home, Puerto Rico (Durham 119). Returning home resonates with the profound impact that reconnecting with one’s place of origin can have on personal identity. While it may be demanding, the journey could enhance the sense of family, culture, and personal connections with the homeland. Additionally, the homecoming experience may deepen the understanding in individuals of what constitutes …show more content…
Similar to how the garden evoked Elliot and Yaz’s Latin origin, another “physical place”, North Philly acts as an essential point to reveal their authentic identities (Durham 119). Thus, it implies that North Philly holds transformative qualities, acting as a stimulant for revealing the unconscious Latin identity of Yaz. In scene five, Yaz recalls the conversation with his ex-husband William that “every time [she] went to North Philly, [she]’d come back different.” (Hudes 33). She continues by describing how distanced she felt with her family. Elliot talks back saying that “all white prep school really fucked with your head, didn’t it?” (Hudes 34). The conversation between Yaz and Elliot depicts Yaz’s “existential crisis” because she cannot reconcile her identity as a North Philly girl (Dufournaud 457). The dissonance between the Puerto Rican life she grew up in and the white normal world she lives provokes an identity conflict. Moreover, Yaz even asks what it is like “to be normal? (Hudes 33). She does not identify her Puerto Rican-self as a normal person. Rather, she is ashamed by her Puerto Rican culture where “funerals are rare occasions”, “a cousin gets arrested”, and an “eight-year-old cousin [sips] through rum through a twisty straw” (Hudes 33). As a result, Yaz mentally classifies herself belonging to White social group. However, when she experiences feeling of
Janie’s first place of residence was West Florida with her grandmother. Her grandmother moved here so they can have a better life. “Ah got with some good white people and come down here in West Florida to work and make de sun shine both sides of de street for Leafy,”(19). This led to Janie
“Melting pot” is a common term used to describe the culture of the United States, as the country blends the values and ideologies of an abundance of different groups of people and individuals. As a result, there are a variety of possible positions on what it truly means to be an American. Some may argue that American identity depends on ethnic origin, religious background, or other personal characteristics. Others might claim that being American depends on whether one believes in liberty, equality, individualism, and justice. Nevertheless, Dwight Okita and Sandra Cisneros demonstrate that some perceptions about American identity can induce more harm than others.
As well as understanding his position with women, he also sees that he is considered a “fearsome entity” (Staples 420) and part of a “drastically overrepresented” group, perpetrators of street violence, based on the colour of his skin (Staples 420). The protagonist separates himself through language in the same way that people separate from him in real
People thrust into environments where they know they will stand out. In Julia Alvarez’s bildungsroman novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1992), Junot Diaz’s short story “Ysrael” (1996), and Morris Louis’s painting Alpha-Pi (1960), all talk about the idea of trespassing and intruding into unknown territory. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents discusses issues pertaining to an immigrant family who recently migrates from the Dominican Republic. The Garcia family struggles to assimilate to the American culture and encounters difficulty raising their young daughters in a foreign environment. In Junot Diaz’s “Ysrael,” a boy with a damaged face is harassed and assaulted by his peers.
This complex work leads to conflicting feelings between the reader and Rodriguez. Rodriguez discusses categories which leads to his personal creation for all the misfits. Rodriguez utilizes his personal experiences to distinguish himself in his lack of a category in American society. Because “the brown child may grow up to war against himself,” Rodriguez searches
All in all, this young coltish character comes to face distinct alienation from the people of Brooklyn, and Betty Smith can capture these revelations through a series of events. As the story progresses, Francie’s visceral imagination
This is the reality of the American melting pot, which I have experienced with very positive results. Not only did my family teach me racial tolerance as an American, but many people have also treated me with respect from differing racial and ethnic backgrounds. This is the politicization of my identity as an American, which has taught me the social values of tolerance in American society. More so, New York City is a very diverse place in which the immigrant can blend with other people fare more easily than in rural areas. In my early thirties, I continue to experience a much better life in the U.S. than I would have experienced living in the Dominican Republic.
As a result of their emigration, America was now viewed as “multiethnic and multiracial” and “defined in terms of culture and creed” (Huntington 1). On the contrary, when people traveled across the border from Mexico, their culture was not so widely accepted. Mexican traditions and values were seen as a “serious challenge to America’s traditional identity” (Huntington 2). The “original settlers” of America were incredibly open to people travelling from Europe, but when people came from Latin America, they were
ENG 122: 5-2 First Draft of the Critical Analysis Essay In the article “Eat Turkey, Become American,” Marie Myung-Ok Lee uses her family memories of Thanksgiving to share with her readers, with personal details and historical data, her family's migratory trajectory to the United States, and their experience living in a small town in Minnesota. The author also discusses the country's immigration system and how their Korean background affected her parents' process of obtaining citizenship. And how, despite a part of the city's population being racist and xenophobic, a group of people from the community where they lived joined forces to save a doctor from being deported. The article's main claim to illustrate the difficulties of immigration in a family is persuasive because it explores how children perceive a foreign culture, highlights the problems with the immigration system and xenophobia in the nation, and suggests ways the community can work together to help other immigrants who are experiencing a similar situation.
She takes many smaller locations and adds meaning to them ultimately connecting them into a map of the social environment of 1910’s Brooklyn. This map is navigated by the character and in different parts she experiences difference pieces of the overarching issues that plague the immigrant families. Most notably is the school she attends her teachers treat them as follows "I hate the foreign children in my class,' she said. 'I hate them because they're different from the rest. I hate them because they're stupid and dirty.
Black and Puerto Rican: Developing Piri’s Double-Sided Identity For centuries, American citizens have possessed a tendency to view ethnicity in black and white. A person without pale skin and smooth hair is characterized as black without regard to his or her self-identification. Given the racism prevalent in society, this black-white paradigm causes difficulty for people who are not comfortable in one or either category. Piri Thomas was one of these children, and his memoir recounts his struggle to understand himself. In Down These Mean Streets, Thomas demonstrates how the protagonist Piri’s confusion with his skin color and Puerto Rican heritage lead him to eventually acknowledge and appreciate his identity as an Afro-Latino man in America.
The decision to attend a white school is a tough one and Junior understands that for him to survive and to ensure that his background does not stop him from attaining his dreams; he must battle the stereotypes regardless of the consequences. In this light, race and stereotypes only makes junior stronger in the end as evident on how he struggles to override the race and stereotypical expectations from his time at the reservation to his time at Rearden. How race and stereotypes made
The struggle to participate in white culture can have the negative effect of causing the minority group to lose cultural identity. In Melvin in the Sixth Grade, Avery strives to fit in with her classmates. To be accepted, she tries to assimilate to their culture and begins to lose her cultural identity. She begins to edit how she speaks. “For the first time I really heard what the kids in school heard when I spoke,” (Johnson 167) she says when she heard her brother using her native dialect after spending a day at school listening to white kids.
Being a black woman raised in a white world, Ann Petry was familiar with the contrast in lives of African Americans and whites (McKenzie 615). The Street, centered in 1940’s Harlem, details these differences. While Petry consistently portrays Harlem as dark and dirty, she portrays the all-white neighborhoods of Connecticut as light and clean. This contrast of dark vs light is used in the expected way to symbolize despair vs success.
“At some point, I turned to one of them and said, “Hey, how come I don't see you guys in any of my classes?’ It turned out they were in the B classes, which also happened to be the black class. The same afternoon, I went back to the A classes, and by the end of the day, I realized that they weren't for me. Suddenly, I knew who my people were, and I wanted to be with them. I went to see the school counselor.”