The Color Purple And The Joy Luck Club

merica consists of different cultures, races, and immigrants from around the world; diversity causes a wide range of values and beliefs which can cause conflict between generations and cultures. Referencing plays and novels such as The Crucible, The Color Purple, and The Joy Luck Club, I struggle to find how I fit into American society as my behaviors and actions are influenced by the restricting pressures of my parental guardians and society.
The pressure of following the collective can cause self-denial of their own identity, especially when trying to conform to society’s definition of an American identity. The Crucible is a play written by American Playwright, Arthur Miller, tells the true stories of the Salem witch trials and the false

The Color Purple, a novel written by Alice Walker, explores the themes of religious freedom through the letters of an African American woman named Celie. As Celie goes through a self exploration of her own American identity, she questions the existence of God himself with her friend Shug Avery. Shug Avery believes that “The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you looking for”(Walker 98). From third to eighth grade, I attended the Catholic school, St. Justin Martyr, in Anaheim, Orange County. I remember having strong connections with almost all the students and teachers at school, because the population was only about 400 students. The school would go to mass every Friday and religion class daily, learning about the Old and New Testaments and memorizing prayers. Although it was an uplifting experience, I questioned God and his teachings similarly to Celie in The Color Purple. There was one moment in mass when the priest emphasizes the phrase “ Marriage between a man and a woman was instituted by God with Adam and Eve”. From that moment I questioned everything that Catholicism teaches. I realized how difficult it is to come out as a homosexual

The Joy Luck Club, written by second-generation Amy Tan, is a collection of stories written in the perspectives of four mothers and four daughters. Although there are various short stories in one novel, it relates to one theme of the conflict between the first and second generation. The second generation argues “That parents shouldn’t criticize children. They should encourage instead.---And when you criticize, it just means you’re expecting failure” (Tan 31), as the first generation answers, “You never rise. Lazy to get up. Lazy to rise to expectations”(Tan 31). As a second generation Asian American, the thought process of June Woo is incredibly similar to how I feel, yet placed in a mature manner. As a teenager, it is hard to process one’s feelings because of puberty, hormones and scientific phenomena that I can not explain. However, it could also be the lack of conservation and communication between young adults and adults themselves. My parents have the highest expectations: getting straight A’s, having my back straight, being the top of my class and many more I do not want to list. As previously stated before, most of my childhood I lived in Anaheim which was not the most academically challenging district; being top of my class was a piece of cake. Unfortunately moving to Irvine, that was not necessarily the case. Irvine was showered with