Analysis Of In Stranger Balances At Family's Story By Susan Julny

The United States is a country that is filled with different, and often, contradicting ethnic beliefs. Often times these ethnic beliefs impact how certain individuals are not only looked at but also treated. The discrimination that individuals often received from other people is referred to as racism. Racism in the United States has been a touchy subject in recent years, which is why writers don’t like to discuss the issue in their work. However, Susan Saulny the writer of “In Strangers’ Glances at Family, Tensions Linger” talks entirely about racism and how it has impacted the life of Heather Greenwood, a wife and mother, living in Lambertville, N.J. Saulny’s article is considered to be a popular article because of why and how it was written.

Saulny focuses on one specific family and the struggles that that specific family has faced with racism. In her article, Saulny breaks up the main idea she wants to get across into individual sections, each with its own individual title. The first few paragraphs in her article provide the reader with background knowledge about what the main focus of the article will be about. The second set of paragraphs fall under the title “A Family’s Story”. And the title “A Family’s Story” is the perfect title for this section. The title practically explains itself, because this is the section where the reader gets a brief history of how the Greenwood family became the family they are today. Mrs. Greenwood was born Heather Greenwood to her mom Mrs. Dragan. And all of her life even when she was a kid she struggled with the idea of race. And it’s because of her struggling as a child that she tries her hardest to keep race out of the lives of her children. The third section is titled “Stinging Insults”, and it's in this section that the reader is met with different rhetorical examples of how the topic of race has impacted the Greenwood family. One of those examples comes when Heather was younger and riding the bus. A boy called her a “nigger”, which was a word that she had never heard before so she had to ask her Mom what it meant. This goes to show that even when she was growing up, her family didn’t put a lot of focus on race in the family. That is why Heather had never heard of the slur before. The final section in Saulny’s article was titled “Humor and Strength”, and this section ties in perfectly with “Stinging Insults”. Because after reading “Stinging Insults” Saulny leaves the reader thinking how could a family survive with all of the negative that surrounds them, how do they manage to stay together? But that question doesn’t last long because