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My Favorite Chapperone Analysis

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The story "My Favorite Chaperone" is an example of how life can be for families adjusting to a new culture. For instance, Maya and her brother Nurzhan, the children are further adjusted than the adults but not fully. Everyone adjusts differently and dealing with that as a family can pose difficulties.
The very first page shows an example of how the children adjust. Maya is in class when permission slips for the Spring Fling are being passed out. She takes one even though she knows her parents don't approve of schools having dances, as many American schools do. Her mom holds on to her country's ways. Maya also states "I don't know why I didn't throw it away. Maybe I just couldn't give up hope. It's like that in America. It's a place where things can change for people, and many people always seem to have hope,"(Okimoto, p1). Subconsciously, it shows how Maya wants her parents to accept how she's Americanized and for them to be Americanized too. She wants to belong to this place. But the wording also shows how she views herself a little separate from this idea of America. She speaks as an observer, not taking for granted things such as "the hope of America." She also mentions that since she was pulled out of ESL "I often feel like I'm in the middle of a game where I don't know the players, the rules or even the …show more content…

They mainly speak Russian and that keeps them dependant on Maya for picking up calls (Okimoto, p13), and for translating at Nurzhan's teacher conference (Okimoto, p11). It keeps them from easily communicating with the mainly English-speaking people of America. They believe that if one person insults another, they insult the whole family so they hold Maya responsible. Most people in America don't believe that. As well, Kazakh men don't do kitchen work (Okimoto, p3). That is a trait from Kazakhstan. Those learned traits stay with

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