Mura Secrets And Anger

673 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racism in literature

Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something. According to Merriam-Webster a secret is something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others. The definitions of anger and secret perfectly describes David Mura’s life. Mura is like most of us by retaining secrets and anger, causing the air balloon effect. The title, “Secrets and Anger” is an appropriate title for Mura’s essay, because it shows Mura’s struggle of his race and ethnicity throughout his life. In this essay Mura expresses his anger towards the Broadway production Miss Saigon. Mura “protest . . . [actor equality] against the producer’s casting . . . [Mura] felt disturbed that again a white actor, the British Jonathan Pryce, was playing …show more content…

On the day Samantha Lyn is born, Mura ask himself, “Can I teach my daughter Japanese cultural?” when Mura is barely understanding the cultural himself (Mura 35). Mura feels daunted by the situation because he “decided that [he] was not Japanese . . . [he] was never going to be Japanese, and . . . [he] was never going to be an expert on Japanese cultural” after his trip to Japan and discover his identity as Japanese-American. Mura’s regret, is he never took advantage to learn his Japanese cultural as a young kid, and now sees himself “as a person of color” (Mura 35). All of these regrets put pressure on Mura that he is incapable to teach Japanese cultural to his daughter Samantha and “would rather not discuss, [because] it seems much easier to opt in silence”. Shamefulness is also a worry for Mura. Mura is more attracted to “the ‘beautiful’ bodies of white women” than the other race and ethnicity. Mura also question if he should tell Samantha “[his] own desire for a ‘hallucinatory whiteness,’ of how in [his] twenties such a desire fueled a rampant promiscuity addiction to pornography . . . ?” (Mura 35). At the time Samantha is young and would not know how to take it

Show More
Related

  • Race And Race In Southland, By Nina Revoyr

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    The history of racial and class stratification in Los Angeles has created tension amongst and within groups of people. Southland, by Nina Revoyr, reveals how stratification influences a young Asian woman to abandon her past in order to try and fully integrate herself into society. The group divisions are presented as being personal divisions through the portrayal of a generational gap between the protagonist, Jackie, and her grandfather. Jackie speaks of her relationship with Rebecca explaining her reasons why she could never go for her. Jackie claims that “she looked Asian enough to turn Jackie off” (Revoyr, 2003, p. 105). Unlike her grandfather who had a good sense of where he came from and embraced it, Jackie rejected her racial background completely. Jackie has been detached from her past and ethnicity. This is why she could never be with Rebecca, Jackie thought of her as a “mirror she didn’t want to look into”. Rebecca was everything Jackie was tr...

    Read More

  • Janie's Self-Discovery

    1473 Words  | 3 Pages

    Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.

    Read More

  • African-Americans perform for the White People

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both Dr. Manganelli in “The Tragic Mulatta Plays the Tragic Muse” and Dr. Ashton in “Entitles: Booker T. Washington’s Signs of Play” depict marginalized African-American characters who have to deal with being former slaves and get into the public light in performative roles. Both authors show that African-American always have to perform for white people, be it when they are slaves, in a concubine role or later when they are free.

    Read More

  • African American Theater

    1967 Words  | 4 Pages

    Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were the only way for African-Americans to express the deep pain that the white population placed in front of them. Singing, dancing and acting took many African-Americans to a place that no oppressor could reach; considering the exploitation of their character during the 1930's-1960's ‘acting' was an essential technique to African American survival.

    Read More

  • Societal Views on Interracialism Throughout American History

    6203 Words  | 13 Pages

    Plum, Jay. "Accounting for the Audience in Historical Reconstruction: Martin Jones’s Production of Langston Hughes’s Mulatto." Theatre Survey. v 36 (1995) 5-19.

    Read More

  • Life of a Sensuous Woman, by Ihara Saikaku

    1099 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel Life of a Sensuous Woman, Ihara Saikaku depicts the journey of a woman who, due to voraciously indulging in the ever-seeking pleasure of the Ukiyo lifestyle, finds herself in an inexorable decline in social status and life fulfillment. Saikaku, utilizing characters, plot, and water imagery, transforms Life of a Sensuous Woman into a satirically critical commentary of the Ukiyo lifestyle: proposing that it creates a superficial, unequal, and hypocritical society.

    Read More

  • Biracial Identity Analysis

    1974 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ann Perkins, Jones’ character, is supposed to be an ethnically ambiguous person and in reality, Rashida is biracial (Glamour). Leslie Knope, the white protagonist of the series, frequently uses words like ‘exotic’, ‘tropical’, and ‘ethnically ambiguous’ when complimenting Ann. The ‘compliments’ also act as the only instances where race is spoken about in reference to Ann’s character. One would believe that Leslie’s constant complimenting of Ann is beneficial to viewers with a biracial identity, but there are some serious problems with Leslie’s behavior. There has been an historical and recent fascination with ‘mixed’ children. This fascination has crossed over into fetishizatoin of biracial or mixed children and people. Biracial people are seen less as people and more as a kind of spice that bell hooks mentions in her work “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” (21). They are something that helps liven up the blandness of the pervasive white culture. Another harmful aspect of Ann’s depiction relates to her class. In Edison’s work, she notes that “biracial individuals living in a middle- and upper-class environments are more likely to be perceived as biracial (rather than black) than those living in working- and lower-class environments” and that “‘color blind’ portrayals of middle- and upper-class Black and biracial characters support the notion that race no longer matters (at least for middle- and upper-class people)” (Edison, 302; 304). Ann’s character is a successful college-educated nurse which is not problematic until one realizes that her race is never truly discussed. This feeds into the stereotype that race does not matter and that all people in the U.S. have the same opportunities. Again, the lack of racial representation leaves one character the duty of depicting a whole group of

    Read More

  • The New Negro Movement

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    Krasner, David. Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre: 1895-1910. Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1997. Print.

    Read More

  • Americanization in The Joy Luck Club

    1951 Words  | 4 Pages

    Xu, Ben. Memory and the Ethnic Self: Reading Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. An excerpt from MELEUS, Vol. 19, No.1 (Spring 1994). 1994. The Society for Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. 5 May 2010.

    Read More

  • How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, and Halfie

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    The short story “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, and Halfie” by Junot Diaz is the main character, Yunior’s, guide to dating girls of different races and the ways to act in order to get what you want from them. The only thing Yunior seems to want for these girls is sexual acts. This short story argues that a person’s heritage, economic class, and race affect how a person identifies themselves, and how their identity affects how they act towards other people. The pressures a person may feel from society also has an effect on how a person treats themselves and others. The pressure and expectations from society are also what makes Yunior think he needs to have sex with these girls. There are many different occasions of the main character talking and acting differently to other people within the story, such as: to himself, his friends, and the different girls he tries to date.

    Read More

  • Comparing Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and Waiting for Mr. Kim

    1577 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout Asian American literature there is a struggle between Asian women and their Asian American daughters. This is the case in The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan and also in the short story "Waiting for Mr. Kim," written by Carol Roh-Spaulding. These two stories are very different, however they are similar in that they portray Asian women trying to get their American daughters to respect their Asian heritage. There are certain behaviors that Asian women are expected to have, and the mothers feel that their daughters should use these behaviors.

    Read More

  • Culture And Identity In David Henry Hwang's 'Yellow Face'

    1246 Words  | 3 Pages

    I think this play is a lot about what does race mean, and to what extent do we perform race either onstage or in life:

    Read More

  • Pride in A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry

    1854 Words  | 4 Pages

    Effiong, Philip U. In Search of a Model for African-American Drama: a Study of Selected Plays

    Read More

  • White Women Race Matters Summary

    1706 Words  | 4 Pages

    Unlike hooks and Frankenberg who give detailed views on the idea of whiteness that consistently criticize it as a way of thinking that influences our lives, instead McIntosh gives the readers a perspective of whiteness from a privileged white woman. McIntosh 's admittance and understanding to her class and racial advantage allows her to be able to view the problems surrounding whiteness and by doing so, allows her to make the changes needed to make a difference. Even with the different class viewpoint, McIntosh acknowledges the idea that "whites are taught to think their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average.." (McIntosh 98) and that this way of thinking creates a situation where whites view non white individuals to be abnormal and under average. This prescribed way of thinking produces the idea that if a white individual volunteers or works to help others, this helpfulness is a way of assisting non-whites to be more like whites. This form of education that the people, who have access to education, receive can then be understood as being obviously problematic. The perspective of class is an important viewpoint from McIntosh because as a privileged white woman, she is provided with more access to education and varying resources than many people. Again, the subject of education is brought forward. This access to the different educational institutions that she has had and her acknowledgement to her uneducated ideas on race show how the educational system had failed her. "As a white feminist, I knew that I had not previously known I was 'being racist ' and that I had never set out to 'be racist '" ( Frankenberg 3). Although Frankenberg had begun with the goal of working for the rights of feminism, her lack of knowledge on race, hindered her from understanding more aspects of

    Read More

  • Asian American Literature

    499 Words  | 1 Pages

    For those Asian Americans who make known their discontent with the injustice and discrimination that they feel, in the white culture, this translates to attacking American superiority and initiating insecurities. For Mura, a writer who dared to question why an Asian American was not allowed to audition for an Asian American role, his punishment was “the ostracism and demonization that ensued. In essence, he was shunned” (Hongo 4) by the white people who could not believe that he would attack their superior American ways. According to writers such as Frank Chin and the rest of the “Aiiieeeee!” group, the Americans have dictated Asian culture and created a perception as “nice and quiet” (Chin 1972, 18), “mama’s boys and crybabies” without “a man in all [the] males.” (Chin 1972, 24). This has become the belief of the proceeding generations of Asian Americans and therefore manifested these stereotypes.

    Read More

More about Mura Secrets And Anger

Open Document