In the article “My “Oriental” Father: On the Words we use to Describe Ourselves” Kat Chow explains her opinion on her father’s choice to continue to use the word “oriental” to describe not only himself but anything of the Asian culture. Chow’s father, originally from Hong Kong, moved to the U.S. in 1969. He opened an oriental restaurant in a Connecticut suburb, but it eventually went bankrupt. The author explains how her father using the word oriental made him out to be looked at like a “caricature of a grinning Asian man with a ponytail and buck teeth.” Kat shares a story of when she was working at her father’s restaurant.
Aeshia was a student at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York until fall 2003 when she had to move out due to the fact that her child’s father became physically abuse. Aeshia life became very tough, she had to sleep on beaches she took her son with her both of them stayed at an EAU. It became difficult when she had to wake up early in the morning and leave her children with her girlfriend. Her way getting to school was by riding the train, waking up early in the morning to get to Brooklyn. Adriana, Aeshia, Asad and Johnny were homeless college students.
Gentrification is the process of improving a struggling neighborhood for affluent people. One of the main causes of this shown by Kelefa Sanneh’s article “Is Gentrification Really a Problem?” , is the real estate market. Things that affect the value of something in a certain neighborhood can end up having a direct influence in all of the neighborhood and can lead to gentrification. The construction of a luxury apartment building can attract more businesses and in turn, more high-quality living spaces which could eventually displace someone living three blocks away.
When, His brother Randy , the leader of the scorpions, gets sent to jail, jamal a 12 year old boy needs to get five hundred dollars to get him out. The scorpions are a group of drug dealers. When Randy goes to jail, Jamal is offered the leadership role with his friend Tito by his side. Will he be up for the challenge. His Mama says to stay away from the scorpions because she says she doesn’t want him to end like his brother.
A great deal of people would say we are all just products of our environment― for two adolescent boys from Baltimore this couldn't be any truer. In the autobiographical memoir, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore, unbeknownst, two fatherless African American boys with an identical name and living in the same neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, ended up on two entirely different paths of life. One evolves to be a Rhodes Scholar, honored and respected combat veteran, and business leader. The other is spending the rest of his life in a federal prison for committing a murder. However, in their separate lives, they both started out as young boys that grew up in single mom households in the rough streets of Baltimore.
Not being able to know one’s identity during adolescence can lead to do drugs, commit theft, fail school, and be blind on what to do with their life. This is what James McBride had to go through during his adolescence. Growing up in a black community with a white mother can be very confusing and stressful. He employs rhetorical devices throughout his text in order to develop his epiphany regarding his mother’s life and by, extension, his own. Through the use of appeals and tone James McBride reveals the importance of education and religion, but above all else McBride mostly focuses on finding his identity, trying to understand race as he was growing up, and shows how his mother played an important role in his life
Outcasts United by Allison Bekas “One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.” ~ Euripedes We all have family troubles, disagreements, and sorrows, but it seems they came in abundance for those on the Fugees soccer team. They were a group of foreigners, outcasts, who all shared a common passion: soccer. They have seen the horrors of war and they are left with nothing when they come to America. They form an unlikely team and are confronted with the problems of finding a home field, buying uniforms, and staying away from teenage violence.
American Born Chinese is a story about Jin, an American with Chinese roots, who struggles with his identity - self-conscious about how he looks, sounds, and acts. Jin divides into three different identities; Jin his overall identity, Danny his typical American side, and Chin-Kee his racist stereotype Chinese side. This book is split into three different stories that represent the three different identities, The Monkey King’s story, Jin’s story, and Danny and Chin-Kee’s story. In the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang uses symbolism and literary elements to illustrate struggling with your identity can lead to a better understanding of who you are and where you came from. Jin is faced with racial discrimination, not fitting
Growing up in Hawaii, the idea of community was always such a fundamental part of who I was. I have never looked at it from the perspective of how it benefited me rather how it benefitted everyone around me. Everything I have done from joining local clubs that enriched the Hawaiian culture to volunteering with the west Hawaii special olympics program have helped me become the person I am today. My family has had a huge role in making sure that I am involved with the community. They passed down their practices in paddling, environmental conservation of Kealakekua Bay and encouraging the people who need it the most.
But before one understands what al-Bazzaz discusses, the reader first needs to know about Hussein’s very early childhood background. His father left before he was born, his
Growing up in an immigrant household in America, was difficult. I didn’t live, I learned to adapt. I learned to adapt to the fact that I did not look like any of my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that my hair texture would never be like any of my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that I was not as financially well off as my peers, so I changed.
Imagine having to leave childhood behind and grow up quicker than most people. This was the case for Cassie and the Logan children in Roll of Thunder; Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor, and Squeaky and her brother Raymond in Raymond’s Run, by Toni Cade Bambara. Cassie and her family are African-American and are living in the South, during the time of segregation. They are still not treated equally and have a much harder life than a white family living near them. The children have to understand how things are and how they have to act in order to cause less trouble.
After the death of her parents, Laila accepts Rasheeds marriage proposal because she bears and illegitimate child, a harami. While living with Rasheed, Laila feels trapped and restricted so all she can think of is the “wide-open skies of her childhood” (231). The wide-open skies symbolize all the lost chances Laila will never have; she had an education and now, she is forced to stay home and care for a husband that she does not love. Laila and Mariam have lived many terrible experiences with Rasheed like getting hurt emotionally and physically. After going through the worst punishment they could receive, “the summer of 2000” came and “the drought reached its third and worst year” (302).
The Crow, Film Analysis The Crow by David Schow is a dramatic story about the avenger from a grave who came to this world to execute the ones who took his life and the life of his fiancé. The eternal opposition of good and bad forces encourages the viewer to accompany the main hero in the quest of love and justice. The film engages the audience’s eye and emotions with the content of the film along with its visual exposition. 1.
Rocquemore and Brusma write, “According to Erikson, the central task of adolescence is to form a stable identity, or a ‘sense of personal sameness and historical continuity’” (pgs 19-20). To even come to a point of self-discovery in adolescence there has to be a foundation for a child to continue on from. Birdie, in her pre-adolescence is ill prepared for the real world and how she will be perceived in it, mainly based on her physical attributes. Deck Lee allows his daughters to be sheltered from racism for the better part of their childhood years by being home schooled by their mother.
