Pat Mora Legal Alien Analysis

"[I]magine culture as invisible webs composed of values, beliefs, ideas about appropriate behavior, and socially constructed truths" (Trumbell, 9). Everybody has a different background to correspond with how they see the world through their values, beliefs, and ideas. People act a certain way and dress a certain way because of their culture also. Someone's culture has a significant impact on the way they view themselves and others because cultural identity shapes not only how we make sense of our own experiences, but of our worldview as well.

One indicator of the strength of a person's cultural identity is how certain, or uncertain, they are about their culture. In Legal Alien, the author, Pat Mora, is Mexican-American, but she isn't sure with which culture she identifies the most. She feels like she is walking on a fine line between two worlds: not quite ‘human' in one world and not quite ‘alien' in the other. In her poem, Mora says that she is "American but hyphenated" (Mora, 32). Her uncertainty about her culture carries a significant impact in her life because it defines how she performs everyday tasks. It also defines how she believes the world sees her as "an American to Mexicans" (Mora, 32) and "a Mexican to Americans"(Mora, 32). A visual work of art by the

In Everyday Use by Alice Walker, Dee shows cultural ignorance by not understanding why it would be wrong to display the old quilts. She wanted to hang them on display to show her rags-to-riches story. Her mother would rather have Dee's sister, Maggie; have the quilts because Maggie would put them to everyday use, as they were intended. The quilts had no real meaning to Dee; they were just another piece of ‘art' in her educated world. Her lack of her own cultural knowledge caused her to drift away from her family's