Nacirema Analysis

The article written by Miner was one in which seemingly forced the student to keep reading. The varying ways in which the author described traditions created and passed down through generations of the Nacirema people evoked interest and question in the students mind. The student had never read this article, nor had he read an article written in such a way to make him feel emotions quite like the ones he felt while scrolling though the pages of this article. Fortunately, the student was able to find that he was not the sole student amongst his peers who had many questions and concerns that came to fruition while reading the Nacirema article.

Questions fluttered around the readers head as he finished the first few paragraphs of the article.

He was so disgusted by what he had just read that he could not think about having to talk about it for an hour and fifteen minutes. However, his perception of the Nacirema people did change upon gathering into groups and talking about the events that were described by Miner. As the student worked with his group members on tasks assigned by the instructor of the class he began to relate the, once thought, inhumane acts described by Miner, to events and practices that he and his fellow Americans willingly do throughout their lives. However, that connection seemed to be too farfetched in the readers mind, so he opted out of sharing it with his group members. To the students surprise, the professor later revealed to the class that the word Nacirema was simply America written backwards. The revealing of that simple fact was enough to make the student feel, to an extent, ignorant to the world that he lives in. Granted, he knew that this article was a stretch, but nevertheless, it opened his eyes to the possibility of America being viewed to some people in the way Miner described Nacirema to

According to Miner, “Women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour” (505). The student of this article thought up an oddly similar practice that both women and men of North American society do willingly, visit tanning salons. The men and women who go to tanning salons willingly lay inside of what is seemingly an oven lined with ultraviolet lights. Never had it ever come to the students attention as to how weird of a practice that is until he read the quote mentioned previously in this paragraph. There are obvious health risks when assuming position inside of what is essentially an oven lined with ultraviolet lights. One health risk being overexposure to ultraviolet light, greatly increase the possibility of being diagnosed with skin cancer. Yet, the North American society is willing to “look good” at the cost of potentially dying of a skin related disease. In this case, the people of North America are showing the same ignorance as the women of the Nacirema people who bake their heads in small ovens for roughly an