In the narrative, “New York Day Woman” by Edwidge Danticat, a woman spends the afternoon following her mother around New York City, learning new things about her in the process. One of the constant themes throughout the piece was the interpersonal conflict between people of varying cultures and generations. Values, morals, traditions, and life styles differ from one culture to another and this can result in communication difficulties for people of varying backgrounds. From the text, one can conclude that the author’s mother grew up in Haiti and still has relatives living there (pgs. 2-3); therefore, she is very firm in her native customs. Countries such as Haiti tend to live by traditional ideologies and old school ways of living. Compared …show more content…
A cultural conflict in addition to a generational gap can extremely hinder a familial relationship such as that between Suzette and her mother. Understanding where their differences in viewpoints, experiences and morals spur from help the reader to understand why the author feels the need to follow her mother around the city for an extended period of time. Suzette doesn’t understand where her mother’s “crazy” views and actions come from. She also probably feels ashamed of her mother – ashamed of her culture, her appearance (pg. 2), her lack of assimilation to American society (pg. 1), and her lack of understanding towards her own daughter (pg. 3). This is why seeing her mother carry herself with such dignity and purpose surprises her. For probably the first time, she sees her mother in a completely new light and realizes that there is much more to her mother than she always thought. Viewing her in this new situation opens Suzette’s eyes to the way her mother actually lives life, not the way that Suzette has always assumed. By the end of the narrative, she understands that she shouldn’t be ashamed of her mother because her culture makes her who she is – someone who is very kind and
In El Nahra, for example, the cultural ethos is family honor. All actions in the community are based on the strong family bonds that exist throughout. However, individualism drives the majority of America. Our actions seem to be a direct result of the cultural ethos. In that, lied much of the confusion between Bob, BJ and th...
Thru-out the centuries, regardless of race or age, there has been dilemmas that identify a family’s thru union. In “Hangzhou” (1925), author Lang Samantha Chang illustrates the story of a Japanese family whose mother is trapped in her believes. While Alice Walker in her story of “Everyday Use” (1944) presents the readers with an African American family whose dilemma is mainly rotating around Dee’s ego, the narrator’s daughter. Although differing ethnicity, both families commonly share the attachment of a legacy, a tradition and the adaptation to a new generation. In desperation of surviving as a united family there are changes that they must submit to.
For over centuries, society had established the societal standard of the women. This societal standard pictured the ideal American woman running the household and taking care of the children while her husband provided for the family. However, between 1770 and 1860, this societal standard began to tear at the seams. Throughout this time period, women began to search for a new ideal of American womanhood by questioning and breaking the barriers society had placed upon them.
Monday morning, Sally, a twelve-year-old American girl, is woken up by her father. As she gets ready to go to school, her mother hands her a backpack and lunch with a quick kiss goodbye. Meanwhile, Zarina, a twelve-year-old Sierra Leone girl, wakes herself up to get ready for work. Her aunt says good morning as they both head from their home to the cassava fields. Both of these girls have a traditional family setting. In America children in a traditional family grow up with both biological parents and any siblings they have. In Sierra Leone, the setting for both The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone, children of traditional families live with aunts and uncles as well as many children from different parents. These different views of what is traditional create uniqe children in many ways. Children who grow up in Sierra Leone are more self-reliant than American children.
The book starts off with Jeannette, a successful adult, taking a taxi to a nice party. When she looked out the window, she saw a woman digging through the garbage. The woman was her mother. Rather than calling out to her or saying hi, Jeannette slid down into the seat in fear that her mother would see her. When asking her mother what she should say when people ask about her family, Rose Mary Walls only told her, “Ju...
Traditions control how one talks and interacts with others in one’s environment. In Bengali society, a strict code of conduct is upheld, with dishonor and isolation as a penalty for straying. Family honor is a central part to Bengali culture, and can determine both the financial and social standing of a family. Usha’s family poses no different, each member wearing the traditional dress of their home country, and Usha’s parents diligently imposing those values on their daughter. Those traditions, the very thing her [Usha] life revolved around, were holding her back from her new life as an American. Her mother in particular held those traditions above her. For example, when Aparna makes Usha wear the traditional attire called “shalwar kameez” to Pranab Kaku and Deborah’s Thanksgiving event. Usha feels isolated from Deborah’s family [Americans] due to this saying, “I was furious with my mother for making a scene before we left the house and forcing me to wear a shalwar kameez. I knew they [Deborah’s siblings] assumed, from my clothing, that I had more in common with the other Bengalis than with them” (Lahiri ...
New York Day Women a story by Edwidge Danticat. It talks about a young woman’s thought as she follows her mother from a distance. She was kind of surprised to see her mother outside of Brooklyn, Her mother never really go anywhere but in Brooklyn. Her mother never seen the building where Suzette works and she is also talked in subway, where she is really afraid of it. Suzette was shocked and worried, then she followed her mother as she walk the streets. Her mother was doing everything opposite that she said to Suzette. In this story, it shows their love for each others. Suzette was using her entire lunch break time to follow her mother to see what’s happening, which is an example of love. In my connection, it won’t be the same as this story,
This was the illustration of this entire story. As the story goes it present a lot perspective and though of the mother and very little of the girl. More importantly, the story shows that the mother doesn’t really care about how the girl feels about her advice; it wasn’t a choice either she take her advice and become a good daughter and a good wife in the future or she will become known a “slut” who doesn’t follow her tradition. This story will make you wonder if the girl will ever become the perfect girl that her mother wants her to be or if she gets use to the American tradition and not be the perfect girl her mother ought her to
In Edwidge Danticat’s novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, the reader follows the life of young Haitian girl Sophie Caco. Living with her aunt and later her mother, Sophie grows up with mostly the influence of women in her family. Growing older, though, she learns what a heavy burden she carries being a woman, and the strict traditions she must conform to. Sophie spends her life split between Haiti and New York City, where her mother, Martine, lives. Back in her home country of Haiti, she lives with her Tante Atie, and although there is the presence of colorful Haitian culture, there is also political instability and disturbing, sexist traditions. In New York, she struggles to fit in with her birth mother in modern America. Her heart is torn between these two countries and her trust of her mother.In Breath, Eyes, Memory, Haiti’s vibrant traditions and corrupt politics are reflected as well as its inferior treatment of women.
The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.
People who are part of the Haitian-American culture, like myself, are either born in Haiti and moved to the U.S. and have assimilate to the American culture or were born in the U.S. and have parent who were originally from Haiti. I was born in Haiti and raised in the U.S. I can relate to other people, female and male, who were also born in Haiti and have moved to the U.S at a young age. Members
In “Caroline’s Wedding,” both Ma and Grace respect their Haitian culture. Ma, Grace, and Caroline take a cab home from Eric’s house, who is Caroline’s fiancé. While in the cab, Ma advises Caroline, “‘We know people by their stories,’...‘Gossip goes very far. Grace heard women gossip in the Mass behind us the other day, and you hear what they say about Haitian women who forget themselves when they come here. Value yourself’” (Danticat 185). Ma does not want her daughter to forget her Haitian heritage, not only because she might be gossiped by others,
Regretfully, though readers can see how Mama has had a difficult time in being a single mother and raising two daughters, Dee, the oldest daughter, refuses to acknowledge this. For she instead hold the misconception that heritage is simply material or rather artificial and does not lie in ones heart. However, from Mama’s narrations, readers are aware that this cultural tradition does lie within ones heart, especially those of Mama’s and Maggie’s, and that it is the pure foundation over any external definition.
America was not everything the mothers had expected for their daughters. The mothers always wanted to give their daughters the feather to tell of their hardships, but they never could. They wanted to wait until the day that they could speak perfect American English. However, they never learned to speak their language, which prevented them from communicating with their daughters. All the mothers in The Joy Luck Club had so much hope for their daughters in America, but instead their lives ended up mirroring their mother’s life in China. All the relationships had many hardships because of miscommunication from their different cultures. As they grew older the children realized that their ...
Some people say that the love between a mother and her daughter is forever; but what about the understanding? In the case of Waverly Jong and her mother in the story “Rules of the Game,” by Amy Tan, there is much miscommunication and misunderstanding. The story is set in mid-1950’s Chinatown and as the story opens, it is Christmas time. “Rules of the Game” is the telling of how a little girl learns to be more independent but falls into conflict with her mother along the way and becomes a type of trophy. Amy Tan uses elements such as character, symbolism, and setting to portray the themes of struggle between two cultures and independence perfectly in “Rules of the Game.”