“We’re moving,” said my mother after she had enough. I just wanted to make her happy after everything she had been through. She lived an arduous life: she escaped communist Vietnam, only to settle down and subsequently deal with a decaying marriage that forced her to raise me alone. I didn’t ask questions or wonder about all the things I was leaving behind. In the long run, I just wanted to please everyone. Much like other ten-year-olds, I had never really grasped how large the world was. I was constantly surrounded by Vietnamese people and culture: friends, family, and the language we spoke at home. My world was small and homogenous – a place where I did not have to face the complexities of race. And so we moved to Rhode Island, to be closer with family and for my mother to work at our family nail salon. However, I realized that there was a huge difference between me and my peers. Sailboats and vintage summer cars rested in their garages, while gallons of cuticle softener and spare pedicure chairs waited in mine. Evidently, they were something I wasn’t and something I could never be. …show more content…
“Be sure to mind your manners and watch what you say,” my mother said moments before I went to a friend’s house. She made it unmistakable that – should I do something to offend, annoy, or even speak out of turn – our family was going to lose in the ensuing battle. According to her, our family was no match for theirs. It wasn’t even about our disparaging incomes – it was about skin
The story about I Martranika Gross, called changing my life. It all begin with many ideals that I had in mind to become while changing my life so my daughter will fix in. First was continue my education at Strayer University and a journey to follow. Next, becoming a role model with a pathway lay out for my daughter, a showing her not to stay you can’t to become successful. Finally, overcome obstacles first you have to have faith within yourself, and the key word is knowledge.
Just like the durian, my Vietnamese culture repulsed me as a young child. I always felt that there was something shameful in being Vietnamese. Consequently, I did not allow myself to accept the beauty of my culture. I instead looked up to Americans. I wanted to be American. My feelings, however, changed when I entered high school. There, I met Vietnamese students who had extraordinary pride in their heritage. Observing them at a distance, I re-evaluated my opinions. I opened my life to Vietnamese culture and happily discovered myself embracing it. `
Ever since I was a young girl, I was taught to love those around me and to treat others the way I wanted to be treated. I always looked upon everyone the same way, regardless of if they had a different skin tone or facial features from me. This philosophy, however, did not prove to be a popular one held among my peers in my middle school years. Middle school was the first time I truly experienced confusion regarding my ethnicity and culture. I vividly remember the time when a group of students blatantly mocked and teased my Asian ethnicity.
The term “culture” elicits strong feelings within the Vietnamese community. The adults and elders would tell young people culture is a way of being that involves talking, acting, and following traditions. For second-generation Vietnamese adolescents, culture becomes an everyday battleground. A battleground that takes no prisoners leaving the field desolated. As a result, adolescents are left psychologically, emotionally, and mentally torn to pieces. They must navigate two cultural systems that contradict on another. The dominating American culture stresses individualistic idealism whereas Vietnamese culture stresses collectivistic idealism.
Sandy not only learned through the conversations of the adults around him the importance of skin color, he witnessed a number of events that cemented the notion. Sandy’s somewhat wild Aunt, Har...
Tan describes her childhood as lonely and isolated. Her early childhood also involved a lot of moving, form house to house (Ho 40). She lived the classic minority experience (Huntley 2). At school she was usually the only Chinese student in her c...
Before I was five, I thought I was Chinese. However, I wondered why I couldn’t understand the Chinese patrons of Chinatown restaurants. Upon learning my true ethnicity, I pulled out a mammoth atlas we had under the bed. My father pointed to an “S”-shaped country bordering the ocean, below China. It was then that I learned my parents were refugees from Vietnam. “Boat people,” my mother, still struggling to grasp English back then, would hear kids whispering when she walked through the halls of her high school. Like many refugees, although my parents and their families weren’t wealthy when they came to America, they were willing to work hard, and like many Vietnamese parents, mine would tell me, “We want you to be success.”
During a scene in Oprah’s show, a young woman who herself is light skin explained why she didn’t understand the discrimination that has divided a race based on the preferences of skin tones. Everyone who had light skin did not consider themselves to be any better or smarter than any other African American woman. Privilege was not always the mindset and she took the time to help woman of darker skin tones understand exactly what she meant. She stated, “I’ve seen first-hand how some of my darker-skinned family members are treated, but I too struggle with discrimination. Being a light-skinned girl, you get called names. You get called ‘lite-brite,’ you get called ‘high yellow,’ ‘redbone.’ This is a reality every day.” Not only women of lighter shades feel effected by the bashing of the name calling but they felt just as neglected as women with darker shades of skin.
As I boarded the plane to move to the United States, the beginning of September 2005, I couldn’t help but think about all that I left behind; My family, my friends, my school, my clothes, and all of the awesome cultural food. Then again, I looked forward to this new life, a new beginning. I imagined it being like life in the movies, where everything seemed easy and life was just beautiful. After all, I was going to the States; the place where most people only dreamt of. I felt very blessed to have this opportunity because I knew that it wasn’t given to everyone. Coming to America marked my coming of age because I left behind my old life, I started life afresh, and I became a much grateful person.
Maybe it’s the fact that I tend to stay in my room all weekend, which leads to people thinking I’m studying when in reality I am probably binge watching a TV show or maybe it’s my glasses, but most people who don’t know me too well assume that I am smart. Now that is a great thing for me because I don’t have to try as hard to impress them, but I end up finding myself in a bit of a problem. The problem is that everyone thinks I enjoy admiring school textbooks. But the truth is I’m usually admiring my Justin Bieber poster on my bedroom wall. Ever since I was in sixth grade I’ve been a huge fan of Bieber. His music always brought a feeling of calmness and back in the day his “never say never” motto, was what I lived by. I might still be living by that motto because I’ve decided to write this essay
My Asian heritage would continue to confuse me until I left the comforts of my own home and country, to a place where I didn’t speak a lick of the language. The thick, hot air of Taiwan stuck to me like a layer of lotion and was a constant reminder that I was no longer in my comfort zone. It wasn’t until I saw the small patches of grass sprouting between the cracks of concrete in the remainders of my Ahgong’s (grandpa) tiny and now non-existent ancestral home that I began to understand my cultural
It was a beautiful, sunny day in South Florida. I was six years old, playing by the pool with my new puppy. I loved swimming in the pool almost every day after school. I also enjoyed going out on our boat after school or crossing the street and going to the beach. My father came home one evening with some interesting news. Now, I do not remember exactly how I felt about the news at that time, but it seemed like I did not mind that much. He had announced that we were going to move back to my birth country, Belgium. I had been living in Florida for five years and it was basically all I had known so I did not know what to expect. I had to live with my mom at first, and then my sister would join us after she graduated high school and my father finished settling things. I remember most of my earlier childhood by watching some old videos of me playing by the pool and dancing in the living room. It seemed like life could not get any better. However, I was excited and impatient to experience a new lifestyle. I realized that I could start a whole new life, make new friends and learn a new language. Belgium was not as sunny as South Florida but it has much better food and family oriented activities. Geographic mobility can have many positive effects on younger children, such as learning new languages, being more outgoing, and more family oriented; therefore, parents should not be afraid to move around and experience new cultures.
The day I moved away, a lot of things were going through my young mind. As I took my last look at my home, I remembered all the fun times I had with my family and friends through out my life. Now I was moving 800 miles away from all of that with no insight on what lied ahead for me. As my family and I drove away from our Michigan home, I looked out the window wondering what Virginia would be, and what my friends were doing. A lot of things were going through my mind at the time. At the time my main worry was if I would make any friends, and how I would adjust to everything. During the whole drive down, my mother would often let me know that everything would be all right and I would like it. Trying to be strong and hold back my tears, I just shook my head no, wondering why we had to move so far away. Life would be different for me and I knew it would.
How would I feel I someone I loved died? It is not a question that most people ask themselves frequently, but it is one that often comes up when they read or hear about a notable person that has passed or was killed, or even just a news story about a woman who lost her son. I had the unfortunate experience of discovering what that felt like firsthand.
I am never really aware of how I move my body unless I am acting. As I type this, I am not aware of how I position myself or how my fingers are moving across eh keyboard. I simply am moving them as I always had. With Stanislavski’s system, this is different. I cannot force myself to act in a certain way to make my character more believable (as I do not force myself to act in a certain way outside of the stage), but I do have to move with a purpose. I can shift my body in a way that gives off the mood of being uncomfortable, or I can do the same action with the intent of coming off as intrigue: an unconscious thing in my day-to-day life.