In “Letter to Ma”, Merle Woo writes mostly about her parents learned helplessness; however, Woo also touches on other learned behaviors such as, racism, sexism, and feminism. There are two types of known behaviors, innate and learned. Innate behaviors are reflexes that people are born with and learn behaviors are directly taught or learned from experience. When babies are born they have the innate behavior to close their hands when their palms are touched. People are not born with learned behaviors such as believing in the equality or inequality between genders or races. “Letter to Ma” does a remarkable job of explaining how people are taught to be racist, sexist, or feminist. As previously stated, Merle Woo’s letter primarily focuses …show more content…
In her letter, Woo references the time she saw her father humiliated by two white cops. At the time of writing the letter she feels anger towards the racist police officers, but at the time of the event she was a victim of learned behavior and also becomes a part of her father’s abuse. Learning to be ashamed of your father when he is not able to fit the “masculine” schema you have made for him is a socially taught and reinforced belief, which in this case manifests as a behavior when Woo says “I was so ashamed after that experience when I was only six years old that I never held his hand again” (Woo, 164). In this flashback to her childhood Woo and her father are not the only ones expressing learned behaviors. The two white cops who mock the Asian immigrant do so because in some way, whether from prompting by society, teachings from their upbringing, or any other way, these officers were taught to be racist. Her father’s learned helplessness is what gave him a chance to survive in America, the cop’s learned racism helped them get ahead in a society that values “whiteness”. Just like with racism the ignorance of sexism is also taught and is not coded into our genes. Woo is disheartened that some of her Asian brother’s do not support her fight for the Third World women and against sexism. She points out that they are trading vices when “these men of color, with clear vision, fight the racism in white society, but have bought the white male definition of ‘masculinity’” (Woo,
The example Sue gives is to say “a Chinese-American, that he speaks English well” (para 10 sue). The hidden message is that unconsciously you are putting an image to a person without finding out the whole truth. This is racism to it base core, putting a group into an image that is not truth for all. Coates give examples of situation where the result could had been different had the person been white instead. Obama being asked for his papers at a national new conference or Henry Louis Gate a Harvard Professor, being arrest for breaking in to his own home. These are two extreme case of judgments based on the skin of the person and not on who they are. We know that these action was commit by people who can be said hold some sort of influenced. Being Donald Trump a wealthy business man and a cop. We except them to make correct judgement due to the position they hold, one holds a company, the other the images of order. So for having these people being the one to commit these acts it points out how racism is still in our society it just we don’t see it like that. Coates shows his anger for this being truth by stating “in large part because we were never meant to be part of America
Furthermore, the evidence supporting the Canadian labour leaders’ view on other racialized groups significantly had to do with the treatment other countries had on these similar groups. For example, the article states that in the United States “The Knights of Labor in America were particularly committed to this cause, bringing in more than 90,000 black members by 1887.” (Goutor, 53). The actions of other nations such as the U.S played a role in the actions of Canadian labour leaders, therefore it is unfair to say that labour leaders hated all immigration and were prejudice to all racialized groups. Additionally, labour leaders went on to portray the Chinese as “sexual predators who sought to take advantage of white women.” (Gotour, 49). These diminishing portrayals of Asians (typically the Chinese) clearly reveals the labour leader’s prejudice views on only the people of Asian descent. The false accusations on Asians made it clear that labour leaders were prejudice to specifically
Many minorities like Mukherjee and Divakaruni have expressed that although many traditional obstacles of prejudice have been made obsolete, discrimination still exists, especially in the negative responses of other Americans to their success. The peaking of Anti-Asian sentiment and violence on America’s streets and office buildings has reinforced this theme ten fold. Asians must seek to dissolve the racist love behind the distortions of the model minority paradigm.
Under Sue’s theme of “Pathologizing cultural values/communication styles” (76), a form of microaggression develops. Asians are typically taught to listen rather than speak. The school system typically emphasizes participation to speak in class which may be more intimidating for Asians due to their background and important of silence. Participants of Sue’s study “felt forced to conform to Western norms and values (‘talking more’) when such behaviour violated their cultural upbringing” (77). In other words, Asians participants felt uncomfortable trying to fit the White standard of talking and participating in
nurture in The Gate to Women’s Country, it is evident that nurture and upbringing dominates these characters and their decisions in life. Sherri S. Tepper 's statement that it is possible to breed out the bad qualities in humans through science is incorrect, because nurture and tradition are the factors that play the important role in molding a person into who he or she is are and how they choose to live his or her life. By the women of Women’s Country attempting to altar society and change their nature, they will not succeed unless the women start changing their methods of upbringing. The warriors will always be taught to be violent and protect their honor, the women of Women’s Country will continue producing children to send to the garrison, and the Holylanders will always be a corrupt, misogynistic society. As Dave Belden from The Gate to Women’s Country blog comments: “Do most men in our culture not cry easily because we are taught not to?…or is it in part because testosterone inhibits crying?” (feministsf.net). It is unrealistic to believe that one can change another’s genetic makeup simply by breeding out these traits. Instead, it is the way in which the men were taught that makes one believe that they may never cry. Nurture’s force will always take precedence over naturalistic
Jordan attends an elite private school and an exclusive summer camp. So as much as I want to believe that our upper-middle-class status will protect my son from many of society’s social ills, it could not provide him the white privilege he seeks.” (Canedy 887 )Even though Canedy sent her child to a private school and lived in a big house, she believes that the racism wouldn’t affect him. similar to canedy, Chung worries about racism affecting her children Chung wanted to keep people with racist comments away from her kids. “I consider my children, who probably aren’t tracking this conversation — not just because they don’t watch the television show in question, but because they are still young and, for all our intra-family conversations about racism, they do not yet expect to encounter it in their everyday lives. I generally try to push back when someone says something offensive in their earshot, especially when it’s something I think they might understand.” (Chung) Canedy’s son being afraid of accepting his race is a good example of the problems racism causes the color people to want to be “white” because they have many opportunities that color people don’t if we go back to segregation the whites were able to go to good school and have nice house while “color” wasn’t able to, Many “color
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
Throughout their history in America, Asian immigrants have struggled in many different ways to encourage this country to accept and respect the diversity of its citizens. Through efforts in labor strikes and military aid such as that in World War II, the American society has gradually moved to accept racial minorities. Asian today have much more freedom than when they first began traveling across the Pacific. However, many still find that they are unjustly viewed by society and treated as “strangers from a different shore” (474).
During his childhood, Eric Liu had difficulty coping with the fact that he was an Asian-American living in a predominantly white community. His appearance and his home life, among other things, made him feel out of place. Living in a middle-class suburb that was dominated by “whiteness,” Liu was disoriented by his role in school and society.
...ding white, male superiority. Back in high school, I dated a non-Asian male from my class who often talked about how Asian women are “hot and sexy” yet “more faithful to men and less aggressive than White women.” At the time, I thought this was a compliment and I often tried to conform to this stereotype in order to satisfy my partner. Images of Asian-American women as both innocent and dangerous have legitimized any racist and sexist policies directed at Asians and women.
The social learning theory “states that behavior is learned from the environment through observational learning” (McLeod, 2011). For instance, I saw my mom getting ready for church and eventually I noticed that she put her hair in a ponytail only on Sundays. Furthermore, after seeing her do this so many times I began doing the same thing on Sundays. As a child, I observed her every move and I wanted to imitate her behavior. Through observational learning, I learned what was socially acceptable by watching my mother’s
In this paper I have learned that children base their actions of off what they learned from their parents. In my findings, I was able to see that Girl 1 treated Girl 2 as her mother would meaning that Girl 1 tended to Girl 2 as if she were a young child and she was an older more mature child. Girl 2 also reacted in a way that is considered aggression to get her way. The most interesting thing to me in all of this observation is that Berger was right in saying that behavior is learned through the actions of their parents (Berger, 200, 2012).
Knowing that it would be four years of relentless pestering, I knew that someday I would surpass my tormentors; I would keep under cover of my books and study hard to make my brother proud one day. It would be worth the pain to someday walk into a restaurant and see my former bully come to my table wearing an apron and a nametag and wait on me, complete with a lousy tip. To walk the halls of the hospital I work in, sporting a stethoscope and white coat while walking across the floor that was just cleaned not to long ago by the janitor, who was the same boy that tried to pick a fight with me back in middle school. To me, an Asian in an American school is picking up where my brother left off. It’s a promise to my family that I wouldn’t disappoint nor dishonor our name. It’s a battle that’s gains victory without being fought.
In the short story "Waiting for Mr. Kim," the main female character Gracie understands what it means to be an Asian female, but she does question the meaning because of her sisters. Her sisters ran away from home and eloped before their marriage could be arranged. This is totally against Asian culture, and it causes Gracie to question her heritage and her Asian femininity.
The successful application of these theories have been very interdisciplinary in their use, being applicable in the development of disorders and even calculating spending patterns across social groups. Behaviorism and social learning have evolved beyond the original use of solely educational purposes. However, the effectiveness of the behaviorism theory has come into question as an educational approach., L’Ecuyer (2014) explains that the behaviorism approach, “emphasizes the accumulation of information (knowledge), on external behaviors (skills and mechanical habits) and their emotional and physical reactions in given situations, rather than on the person’s internal mental states, such as intentionality, which are much more complex (p.2). The article questions the modern effectiveness of the behaviorism approach on children. I have found that the theory of social learning when paired with the behaviorism theory is still very useful in education, even with the influx of modern technologies. At the very core, behaviorism, both classical and, seeks to explain why humans react to certain stimuli. Operant is more used in socially especially in child rearing, how to effectively discipline and child via reinforcement of positive behaviors or corporal punishment for negative behaviors is still a highly debated topic. Social learning can also heavily influence