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Lost In Time And Words A Child Begin Anew Language Analysis

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Analyzing the Pressure of Cultural Identity and Assimilation As a nation that many people immigrate to America has many individuals with diverse cultural identities. These minorities are pressured by the dominant Americans to assimilate into American culture. The concept of cultural identity and the challenges associated with assimilation are recurring themes in literature. Elizabeth Wong's "The Struggle To Be An All-American Girl" and Oscar Hijuelos' "Lost In Time And Words, A Child Begins Anew" both explore the struggles faced by individuals as they navigate between their ethnic heritage and the desire to fit into the dominant culture. Through their personal narratives, Wong and Hijuelos shed light on the complexities of assimilation, highlighting …show more content…

Hijuelos recounts his upbringing as a Cuban-American child and the challenges he faces in connecting with his cultural roots due to his isolation from his heritage and his health. Hijuelos’s bad health caused his lack of contact with his cultural heritage and language. His isolated stay at the hospital while only being surrounded by white english speaking people caused him to forget most of his spanish and feel like an outsider when he returned home. But because of my disengagement from Spanish and my frail health, the apartment became something of a prison. (132) This created a huge strife between him, his mother and his cultural background causing him to struggle with his cultural identity. This can be seen most when he can't understand his mother when he returns home. My most frequent companion was my mother, who had begun to regard me, her muy americania son. “¿Por qué no hablas español?” “Why don't you speak in spanish?” I had more than a few problems communicating with her, and I began to experience a stranger's solitude. (133) While at the hospital he picked up the English language and rarely spoke spanish. Without his parents and people around him speaking Spanish it led to an internal struggle between his Cuban heritage and his english saturated mind. This memory highlights the impact of familial factors on cultural identity formation and vice versa, emphasizing the role of parents in shaping their children's understanding of their

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In the essay “The Chinese in All of Us”, written by Richard Rodriguez, shows how America has become a melting pot. People in America have mixed their cultures instead of being their own culture from the country they are from. Now a days, America has grown to be a country that includes many different cultures. The issues covered in the essay, were more social cultural based because Rodriguez talks about how people think that he has forgotten his background but, he mentions that he has not forgotten who he is and instead has become a new person. “In The Chinese in All of Us”, Richard Rodriguez consistently used pathos, ethos, and a style of writing to convince the audience that people have ‘melted’ as a whole, but they are still themselves in

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Reid-Benta's deliberate focus on the interplay between family, tradition, and cultural norms effectively emphasizes the complexity of cultural identity for first-generation Canadians. This exploration allows readers to empathize with Kara's challenges and contemplate the impact of family dynamics on shaping one's identity in a multicultural

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Anzaldúa was a Mexican American who was a well-known writer and had a major impact on the fields of queer, feminist, and cultural theory. Her most famous work is Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza which includes poems, essays, and short stories. Anzaldúa was no stranger to the use of literary theories in her writing, which is evident in her short story “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Here, the author uses a combination of feminist, reader-response, and psychoanalytic theory to show the struggle of being oneself when they’re Mexican-American. Through the use of feminist theory, she explains how a female is labeled as an “habladora” when she tries to voice out her opinion about something; reader-response theory provides the reader with an understanding of the struggles of self-identity, which they are able to relate to, especially Mexican-Americans; and lastly, psychoanalytic theory illuminates on her childhood experiences, which could explain why Anzaldúa believes in what she does, such as the idea that Anglo people have tried to tame her tongue—in other words, her language.

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The immigrants entering the United States throughout its history have always had a profound effect on American culture. However, the identity of immigrant groups has been fundamentally challenged and shaped as they attempt to integrate into U.S. society. The influx of Mexicans into the United States has become a controversial political issue that necessitates a comprehensive understanding of their cultural themes and sense of identity. The film Mi Familia (or My Family) covers the journey and experiences of one Mexican-American (or “Chicano”) family from Mexico as they start a new life in the United States. Throughout the course of the film, the same essential conflicts and themes that epitomize Chicano identity in other works of literature

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Rodriguez ends his book with this Christmas narrative to show that being successful can drive families apart, especially between parents and their children. When Rodriguez was a child he was close to his parents and language was the main reason he felt this way. “My parents would say something to me and I would feel embraced by the sounds of their words” (15) His parent’s melodious words would comfort him and remind him his home. His world was based on who was talking and in what language, los gringos English or his family’s Spanish. He was extremely connected to his parents through speech.

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“The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named María” by Judith Ortiz Cofer and “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan depict the endeavors people take on in an attempt to integrate into society. Cofer demonstrates how stereotypes of Latina women have led others to misjudge her and explains the difficulty she had disassociating herself from those stereotypes. Tan demonstrates that the “broken” English her mother speaks has led others to think less of her and disregard her. One’s appearance instantaneously causes others to judge them. For some it is easier to blend in and be accepted by their community, but what is it that keeps some people from assimilating, and what effect does their otherness have on them?

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He supports this argument by telling his own story of being forced to learn English by the bilingual education system. The experience he had learning English made him experience great embarrassment, sadness, and change. Rodriguez concludes his experience by discussing how English had changed his personal life at home: “We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close;no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness.” By learning English, Rodriguez’s family is finally able to integrate into society without language barriers.

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As humans, we often grapple with the question of whether we should strive to become the person we desire or our truthful selves. In “Home Is Not a Country '' by Safia Elhillo, a first-generation immigrant teenager called Nima, lives in America but desires to live in her dreams of her homeland that she’s never really known. From the beginning, Nima has felt a deep sense of disconnection from identity, language, and herself, the idea of her identity building up many doubts from her. She feels torn between assimilating into American culture and her Sudanese heritage, questioning everything about the homeland, therefore she travels through the past. Through the use of symbolism and imagery, Nima gradually gains a deeper understanding of herself

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Vargas conveys a feeling of seclusion that he endures as an alien to the States through the use of figurative language. He mentions, “yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn't think of me as one of its own” (1080). Because of Vargas’ immigration status, he feels misplaced in his own house, in his own community, and most of all in his own country. By describing the exclusion he feels due to how America treats immigrants like himself, he attempts to put into perspective the discrimination that occurs in the

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This quote explains that the author feels out of place. When Barrientos came to the United States she stopped speaking spanish, partly because her parents wanted her to speak english. One reason she did not want to be classified as Mexican American was that society has negative connotations outsiders. Learning spanish

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For a nine-year-old who wants nothing more than to make her mother proud this was exciting. In the beginning, we can see her excitement and desire, “in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so.” (Tan). However, as we follow the story we see her excitement quickly fade to sorrow and anger. The high expectations immigrant families place on their children is still a very relevant social issue and can be witnessed throughout the United States.

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Even if an immigrant successfully overcomes all political obstacles and makes it to a new country, the change in culture waiting on the other side can prove an even bigger hurdle. In “Always Living in Spanish,” author and professor, Marjorie Agosín recounts her own struggle to balance old and new culture after being forced from her home country of Chile. Agosín explains to Americans why immigrants want to hold

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