In both When Mr.Pirzada Came to Dine, by Thumpa Lahiri, and The Rules of the Game, by Amy Tan, children of immigrant families struggle to place themselves in a culture very different from their parents’. In both stories, struggle to find a balance between the American culture they are growing up in, and the foreign culture their parents what them to embody. This can be seen in The Rules of the Game by the narrator's questioning of Chinese culture in some places, but adherence to it in other. This same phenomenon can be seen in Mr.Pirzada when the narrator does the same thing. It can be seen from the stories, that first generation immigrant children tend to struggle to find a common ground between the influences of their original culture and their new one.
In When Mr.Pirzada Came to Dine, our narrator was born in the united states, but both of her parents came from India. Our narrator goes to an American school, with American kids, that teaches US history and generally embodies American culture. At home, on the other hand, our narrator is taught by her parents the geography of India, and the history of Pakistan “His finger trailed across the Atlantic, through Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and finally to the sprawling orange diamond… Various cities had been circled with lines drawn between them to indicate my parents’ travels” (Mr.Pirzada
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2). Her parents would not be showing our narrator the geography of India if they wanted her to completely assimilate into the american culture. And we can see that, because of this pressure not to completely assimilate, our narrator decides to look into the history of Pakistan, despite the fact that she is supposed to be learning about US history “Eventually I found a book titled Pakistan: A Land and Its People. I sat on a footstool and opened the book… I began turning the pages, filled with photos of rivers and rice fields and men in military uniforms” (Mr. Pirzada 4). This quote shows her interest in her own culture persisting through an American education. Almost the inverse of this conflict can be seen in The Rules of The Game. In this story, our narrator is again a first generation immigrant, but this time of a Chinese family. She lives in Chinatown, and therefore is surrounded by her mother’s culture all the time, but her mother seems to pressure her into assimilating into American culture more. We can see our narrator trying to be part of Chinese culture when, during her free time, our narrator decided to go to a local Chinese market full of“crates of live frogs and crabs which we were warned not to poke, boxes of dried cuttlefish, and row upon row of iced prawns, squid, and slippery fish” (The Rules of the Game 2). We can see the narrator's mother attempting to assimilate our narrator when she looks through the rules of the chess game. She proclaims that the rules are “American Rules” and states it is valuable to know the American rules because “ ‘Every time people come our from foreign country, must know rules. You do not know, judge say, Too bad, go back. They not telling you who so you can use their way go forward. They say, don’t know why, you find out yourself But they knowing all the time. Better you take it, find out why yourself” (The Rules of The Game 4). As we can see from this quote, our narrator’s mother wanted our narrator to learn and become part of the American culture, in order for her security later in life. Again we can see that the lines become very blurry when a child is forced to grow up in two very different worlds simultaneously, creating a conflict of interests between doing what one is told, or doing what one wants. Both of these stories share the theme that people who live in two cultures at once, often are conflicted about choosing one to completely assimilate into.
In When Mr.Pirzada Came to Dine, our narrator is trying to get in touch with her Indian background, despite pressures from the outside world do get in touch with her American one. In The Rules of The Game, our narrator is struggling with her desire to become more in touch with her Chinese background, despite her mother wanting her to be part of the American one. When a person in subjected to two cultures at once, they often struggle to choose one or the
other.
Culture is a unique way to express the way one shows the world and others how different each one is. Culture affects the way one views the world and others. This is demonstrated in the stories “Ethnic Hash” by Patricia Williams, “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora, and “By Any Other Name” by Santha Rama Rau. These stories come together to show examples of how people of different cultures are viewed by others as different. Mora, Williams, and Rau all have very unique styles, and this is shown throughout the following quotes.
Madeleine Thien’s “Simple Recipes” is a story of an immigrant family and their struggles to assimilate to a new culture. The story follows a father and daughter who prepare Malaysian food, with Malaysian customs in their Canadian home. While the father and daughter work at home, the mother and son do otherwise outside the home, assimilating themselves into Canadian culture. The story culminates in a violent beating to the son by his father with a bamboo stick, an Asian tool. The violent episode served as an attempt by the father to beat the culture back into him: “The bamboo drops silently. It rips the skin on my brothers back” (333) Violence plays a key role in the family dynamic and effects each and every character presented in the story
She has never had to experience the idea of fitting in with her own culture. Being American is simply natural and a way of life for her. Traveling to another country, especially to one that was nothing like she expected it to be, helped to her stumble upon some important insights. She states being away from her own culture did not change her but made her able to realize what values and habits were the most important to her. In the other story, author Patricia was of Korean descent, but was born and raised here in America. Due to her Korean descent Patricia never really knew for sure where she belonged. She used a name to describe it, “hyphenated Americans,” because she looks like she is from another country but was born and raised here. People right on the streets of New York will ask her where she is from and compliment her on her good English skills. This makes it difficult to truly identify as an American. To really know what values and habits are her own. Traveling to Korea, visiting what they have called her homeland, taught Patricia some important insights of her own.
“The Contact Zone”, is defined by Mary Louis Pratt as “the space in which transculturation takes place – where two different cultures meet and inform each other, often in highly asymmetrical ways.” Pratt describes what she calls ‘contact zones’ and elaborates on the pros and cons of these cultural interactions. She sees the contact zone as a place that allows people to exchange cultural ideas and break down the dividing cultural borders. When a contact zone is started, people are able to interact on new levels gaining a new perspective because they are able to collaborate with people from foreign cultures. If you are always with people of the same culture as you, you become used to hearing everything from the same perspective. With a new perspective, you can see your culture from a different point of view and reanalyze the logic behind your cultural traditions. Every ethnic/ religious/ regional/ cultural group has its high and low points, and it is just as important to learn about the low points as it is to learn about the highs. Gloria Anzaldua’s essay, “how to tame a wild tongue”, focuses on the ideas of losing an accent or native language to conform to the dominant culture.
Alice Walker, John Updike, and Tom Whitecloud write stories in which culture plays an important role in many aspects of the conflict. In each story, a particular ethnic, occupational, social, gender, or age group's culture may be observed through characters' actions, thoughts, and speech. The decisions the characters make to resolve these conflicts in Everyday Use, A & P, and Blue Winds Dancing are affected by the characters cultural experiences. In fact, the conflict itself may be about clashing cultures or entirely generated as a result of cultural experiences. A character's culture continues to guide him as he tries to resolve the conflict. In short, culture heavily affects the three stories' conflicts.
of the native tongue is lost , certain holidays may not be celebrated the same , and American born generations feel that they might have lost their identity , making it hard to fit in either cultures . Was is significant about this book is the fact it’s like telling a story to someone about something that happened when they were kid . Anyone can relate because we all have stories from when we were kids . Alvarez presents this method of writing by making it so that it doesn’t feel like it’s a story about Latin Americans , when
The narrator, ever since he was young, never really stuck by the traditional family standard of living: his father decides to start a new family with someone else that is not his mother and given the freedom to choose to live with his Aunt as his parental guardian. The narrator defines his relationship that he has with his Aunt that allowed him to truthfully say that he was “proud to be her nephew and her son” (52), which displays the narrator’s perception that although he is not her direct son, he is a huge impact and part of her life. He is able to define himself as her sole son. As the story goes on, the narrator realizes the conflict that he is soon stuck between. His life is molded into a mixed culture where he would: still have strong holds to his Native American heritage along with accustoming to the white’s expectations of attending college while maintain a strong relationship with his Aunt. Through his aunt having “so much love and knowledge to share, which she passed onto [the narrator] naturally” (53), the narrator is able to witness first-hand about the Native American tradition and beliefs. As compared to Gary Soto’s work, both narrators were able to view their culture under a new light with a positive perspective. By the end of the stories, both narrators were able to associate themselves with their cultures without feeling the need to change it or contemplate over, something that is irreplaceably taught to them through the power of family. Through this process, they have materialized that they did not have to alter the structure and way of life of their family in order to find clarity with who they are. However, the difference between the two stories is that each narrator learns these lessons through different means. The narrator from “Looking for Work” learns through
People of Filipino decent have a rich culture that emphasizes tradition and family; as well as allows for a political and sociocultural movement for Filipino immigrants in their new countries. Theme one focuses on the concept of culture and how Filipinos present themselves as a race. Although they reside in the United States, it was rare for most informants to identify themselves as Americans. Rather, they viewed their culture as being morally correct and righteous and American culture as deviant or aberrant. Explicitly, the issue with Filipinos in terms of American culture was their concept of family and the U.S. families’ lac k thereof. They argue that in their culture family is a dominant aspect that preaches assistance and care for one another. Additionally, they disagree with the ideology that American families have in terms they raise their children. Filipinos take care of their children and continue to offer them resources and shelter regardless of their age. Conversely, they believe that American parents lack in care for their children and ultimately get the same from them in return. Filipino culture also emphasizes gender roles and restrictions, particularly female gender. Females are expected to take on the role of the
Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” describes Tan’s upbringing as a Chinese-American caught in between two cultures. In “Fish Cheeks” Tan’s crush Robert and his family were invited to Tan’s house for Christmas, Amy was embarrassed of Robert’s impression of her Chinese relatives, cuisine, and culture (Tan 110). Tan’s situation is not uncommon as millions of first generation Americans encounter similar situations while living within two cultures. Albeit the extreme embarrassment Tan endured throughout the encounter, she contends that her mother taught her a valuable lesson in appreciating her Chinese culture (111). Ultimately, Tan's purpose was to implore first generation Americans to embrace both of their cultures, in spite of its unique traditions (Tan
...d and left with little cultural influence of their ancestors (Hirschman 613). When the children inadvertently but naturally adapting to the world around them, such as Lahiri in Rhode Island, the two-part identity begins to raise an issue when she increasingly fits in more both the Indian and American culture. She explains she “felt an intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new”, in which she evidently doing well at both tasks (Lahiri 612). The expectations for her to maintain her Indian customs while also succeeding in learning in the American culture put her in a position in which she is “sandwiched between the country of [her] parents and the country of [her] birth”, stuck in limbo, unable to pick one identity over the other.
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
Family dynamics present interesting revelations, especially regarding the relationship between parents and children. While most families undoubtedly encounter dysfunction at some point throughout life, immigrant families seemingly experience such stress continually. A handful of short stories, including “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, “Who’s irish” by Gish Jen, and “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” by Yiyun Li, demonstrate how strained relations erupt in immigrant families. Familial tension noticeably arises because of the immigrant parents’ inability to fully adjust to the American way of life. Further, immigrant parents adhere to strict expectations in an attempt to uphold the family’s conservative heritage. Finally, immigrant parents typically
In conclusion, culture can shape one’s identity but also confuse people. The perfect balance of mixed culture can be found with just some guidance of an adult, song, or even a girlfriend. Culture is a very important and individual aspect of everyone’s
“ A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people”- Mahatma Gandi. No matter where you are, you always should know where you came from. There were two stories that were rea about cultural heritage. One was a short story titled “ Everyday Use” by Alice Walker that was about how there were two girls sisters who wanted a quilt because it reflected on their background, but one wanted the quilt to symbolize as a trophy; while the other sister wanted the quilt just to use for everyday use. The second text that was read was a personal essay named “ Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee that was about two Indian girls who moved to America, and one became an American citizen, while the other was just a legal immigrant,
Her message on the different reasons why immigrants come to new countries and cultures is highly perceived in her story. Her use of rhetorical devices helps success her in her story. The usage of ethos, storytelling, word choice and structure played a major role in aiding her beliefs and illustrating them to her audience. Ethos helped her compare her and her sister’s beliefs on their culture and lifestyle in India and America. Storytelling made it possible for readers to connect with her thoughts and stay entertained throughout the paper. Her word choice and structure also helped the outline of the story and made her beliefs sound more