“I’m a human being, not a color”
The many battles encountered when being in an environment where you’re “different”
By Stephane Ortiz
EWRT 1B
December, 2014
Prof. Patton
Acknowledgments Writing this paper would have not been possible with out the help and support of these bright and intelligent people around me, many of whom I will mention here. First and foremost I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my parents, for their constant support and always enabling me to stay out late due to working on this paper. My brother, and sister, whom at times interfered while writing this paper, but have given me their full support and help at all times. I would like to acknowledge Chitra Divakaruni, for
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Out of all people, he decides to ask an Asian American where he can find it. Ronnie is outraged when he is asked where Chinatown is, especially by a “white guy”. Ronnie thinks its very racist that just because he’s asian, he would know where Chinatown is. We see many examples of asian stereotypes in this story. “So why is it that you picked me, of all the street musicians in the city-to point you in the direction of Chinatown? What are you gonna ask me next? Where you can find the best dim sum in the city? Whether I can direct you to a genuine opium den” ()? We see both sides of the issue for Benjamin and Ronnie. Benjamin is being disrespected by this Asian American because he doesn’t look asian american; while Ronnie is unconsciously being stereotyped by Benjamin. Although both men are Asian American, in different ways, there is a conflict because of their physical …show more content…
An environment where you’re different meaning an environment with different races, cultures, skin tones, ect. I’ve experienced it all, racism, stereotypes, culture shock. I was born in America, therefore I didn’t experience culture shock in the way that the character from “Clothes” did. However I did move from an all Mexican-American neighborhood/ community to a school with 40% Asian, 35% Indian, 15% White, and 10% Mexican. The environment was completely different and was something that took me a while to get use to. I wasn’t use to all the different ethnicities and cultures, I was so use to being around just Mexicans. Growing up I’ve always heard the same stereotypes over and over. That all Mexicans are illegal immigrants, lazy, can’t speak english, drunks, and they’re good for nothing but having tons of babies. When in reality, the majority of Mexicans are far from lazy, hard working, good people that just want a brighter future for their families. And of course I’ve experienced racism. I remember a busy day at the bank, my mom beat a caucasian lady to the last parking spot. She was furious, yelling, “Go back to Mexico”! It was by far one of the worst things said to me and my mom. My mom acted like she didn’t hear anything, and so did I. But I know we both heard it. Although I’ve had some unpleasant experiences, living in an
In this summary the author Tanya Barrientos is explaining how hard it is be different. In the beginning of the summary Barrientos explained how people automatically assume that she is Latina. She grew up in an English-speaking world. Her parents are born and raised in Guatemala but she moved to the United States at the age of three. When her parents came to the United States of America they stopped speaking English immediately. Her parents wanted her to read, talk, and write only in English. She felt like she was the only one who needed to learn how to speak Latino, even though she looks like she can already. In the summary she went on saying that she was trying to fit in and become a regular person so other Latinas won’t judge her. All she
She explains how Mexican and Chicano literature, music, and film is alienated; their culture is considered shameful by Americans. They are forced to internalize their pride in their culture. This conflict creates an issue in a dual culture society. They can neither identify with North American culture or with the Mexican culture.
On the surface, Chinatown is a film about the political corruption surrounding the conflict over water rights in Southern California in the early 20th century. But really, it is a film that gives the audience a bleak and pessimistic view of humanity as it sheds light on the deep moral bankruptcy of which humans are capable. The opening scene of Chinatown gives the audience a taste of the human immorality to come and also hints at some key themes that continue throughout the film.
For an example, Hwang introduces Ronnie as an Asian-American man in his mid-twenties whose racial connection to the Chinese culture is more emphasized than his ethnic connection. Ronnie, in annoyance of Benjamin’s stereotypical advance to him, asks: “So why is it that you picked me, of all the street musicians in the city — to point you in the direction of Chinatown?” (Hwang, 39). Ronnie insinuates that, because he is racially identified as an asian, Benjamin would assume that he could assist in finding the location. This is what the author Hwang defines as polemical stereotyping in the play, revealing that Benjamin’s approach to Ronnie is due to his racial appearance.
Chinatown builds upon the film noir tradition of exploiting expanding social taboos. Polanski added an entirely new dimension to classic film noir by linking up its darkness with the paranoid and depressed mood of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, thereby extending the noir sense of corruption beyond the mean urban streets and to high governmental and privileged economic places. Chinatown may be set in 1930’s L.A., but it embodies the 1970’s. The film stands as an indictment of both capitalism and patriarchy going out of control. It implies that we are powerless in the face of this evil corruption and abusive power that is capable of anything, including incest: one of the most horrible breaches of human decency and social morality imaginable.
Hwang’s father has been victims of racism since 1996, we can’t tell by the last name or by the way the look like where they come from. We aren’t allowed to ask at auditions legally, a person’s race. Therefore, the fact that DHH a character in this play mistakes a white man for being part Asian shows us that we can’t necessarily tell where a you really from by looking
Did everyone has taken a moment to imagine which neighborhood that you like to live? The Chinatown neighborhood of Chicago is one of the historic neighborhoods. According to Harry Kiang’s Chicago’s Chinatown, “In 1890, 25 percent of the city's 600 Chinese lived along Clark between Van Buren and Harrison Streets, in an area called the Loop’s Chinatown. After 1910 Chinese from the Loop moved to a new area near Cermak Road and Wentworth Avenue, mainly for cheaper rent” (Encyclopedia of Chicago). The Chicago has two Chinatowns at the Southern part of the Chicago. Thus we can know that the old Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood is called the Loop’s Chinatown and located at Clark between Van Buren and Harrison Streets; the new Chicago’s Chinatown located
The main stereotype in this movie is that Asian men only care about their jobs and their careers and little else. That the Asian man will go through great sacrifice to get to the top of the business that they work for. From beginning to end, many white families are portrayed in the movie showing that the American people have family values. Yet absent through the whole course of the picture is any Asian man with his family. This signifies that the Asian group does not have time, nor wants to make time to have a family life because they are trying to succeed in business. The Asian boss in the film wanted the results to his li...
“Family Guy” is well known to be a cartoon of disgrace and ill-mannered portrayals of real life events. Asian Stereotype was no exception portrayals in “Family Guy”. In many of the Asian stereotypical scenes in “Family Guy”, one of the episodes shows a scene about an Asian woman driver causing wreckage on the freeway as she exits out of the freeway itself. The following is a dialogue of the scene:
RaStereotyping is a way of thinking about groups of people. It ignores the differences of the group, while emphasizing its similarity. One belief, that is a stereotype, is that red-haired people are hot tempered. Another belief is that Scottish people are stingy. Such thinking ignores many even-tempered redheads and generous Scottish people. Stereotyping emphasizes many differences between groups while ignoring their similarities to other people. It ignores that many blond and brown-haired people also lose their tempers. Stereotyping overlooks the fact that many American, Brazilians and French people are stingy.
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 preceding generations of Asian Americans and therefore manifested these stereotypes. Those authors who contest these “American made” stereotypes are said to betray the American culture and white power around them, and to be “rocking the boat” in a seemingly decent living situation.
At some point in our lives we experience a culture as an outsider by moving from one culture to another.In the world today there are so many different cultures and not one of them is found to be the same.Instead they all have something that makes them unique, whether its language or even the clothes they wear and their behavior as well.The differences they have is what separates them from one another and who ever joins that particular culture must get accustomed to their way of life.In the society today we have many people immigrating to the United States to start a new and better life but what they soon begin to realize is that it’s a whole new world out there and in order to survive they have to get accustomed to the new way of life which is much different from their lives before.
We live in a time where Congress spends their time deciding that pizza is a vegetable. We live in a time where we place embargoes on countries that are no longer a threat to the world. We live in a time where a president that sends more drones, sends more troops, and kills more soldiers and civilians is awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. We live in a time where assassinating American citizens as young as 16 without a trial are considered progress. We live in a time where being detained indefinitely without due process and having our phones wiretapped are considered a necessary procedure to our security. We live in a time where we bang our war drums for the sake of war. We live in a time where we spend billions of dollars abroad in foreign aid to build schools, homes, and democracy. We, too, have poor education, foreclosed homes, and restricted freedoms. We live in a time, when the United States ranks 31 in math, 23 in science, and 17 in reading, out of 74 countries by the Organization of Economic
The subordination of women in Chinese culture belongs to the traditional or pre-communist period. Indeed, women in Chinese civilization, or at least in the very past, were considered merely as wives and housekeepers; their education, in fact, was focused on preparing them for the future roles of mothers and wives (Patt-Shamir, 2010, 246). Before the Chinese revolution, males worshiped the Confucian doctrine: “obedience” and “respect” were at the basis of their assumption, as they recognized Confucianism as law (Cook and Powell, 2006, 279). The protagonist of the dramatic movie Ju Dou is the young woman named Ju Dou as well as the personification of different themes through the color red that shows up several times during the movie and which identifies itself with the main problems in an oppressed rural village. Furthermore, due to erotic context, the Chinese government banned the movie for two years. However, the sexual scenes are not scandalous, but how the movie depicts and denunciates the traditional position of women could have reached popularity in every part of the country. The movie Ju Dou is a considerable manifestation of gender stereotypes and of the Chinese patriarchal
a. Culture Shock, page 34: The disorientation that people experience when they come in contact with a fundamentally different culture and can no longer depend on their taken-for-granted assumptions about life.