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Okita's And Cisneros: American Identity

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Both Okita's and Cisneros's stories talk about the American identity and how it is much more complex than just your physical appearance or your family's heritage. Okita's poem talks about how she identifies much more with the American culture than her Japanese heritage, and it focuses on a conflict with an American girl that she has grown up with in school. Okita's classroom friend, Denise, becomes hostile and rude towards her after the passing of the executive order that targets Japanese American people. Okita writes her letter to clarify that she may be Japanese-American, but she is not the enemy and she is just like Denise. Cisneros's story focuses on how different she feels from her Mexican culture, comparing and contrasting her
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They both show ways of perceiving American identity and what it means to an individual, particularly of one who is Japanese American or Mexican American. In Dwight Okita's poem, the girl's American identity has to do with her experiences in her life, not where she is originally from. In Sandra Cisnero's short story, the girl's American identity contrasts strongly with her family's culture and heritage. The two texts highlight the importance of individual identity and American identity, not physical appearance and heritage or ethnic background. The main characters in both of the texts relate and connect more to being American than their other cultures.

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It is a story of bravery and courage. Thus, Alvarez challenges the traditional views of women such as the view that a man is the head of the family, the view that women are

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There is often a time in Asian Americans’ lives when they experience a cultural disconnect: being too “White” for their Asian relatives, yet too “Asian” for their White peers. These feelings are true for Jay Reguero, the protagonist of Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay. Throughout the novel, Jay, a Filipino-American, struggles with feeling like an outsider in the Philippines because he cannot speak his mother tongue and has spent his entire life in the U.S. During his time in the Philippines, he attempts to connect with his culture but he is constantly reminded of how little he knows and understands about the Philippines. Therefore, this novel is about Jay’s struggle with his cultural identity and his feelings of guilt from not connecting

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Inequality did not just occur in the everyday life of a Mexican-American, there were also signs of inequality in the educational system. This is explained in “Occupied America A History of Chicanos” by Rodolfo F. Acuña. The fact that the Anglo-Americans had stereotypical views such as them being “dirty, shiftless, lazy, irresponsible, unambitious, thriftless, fatalistic, [and] selfish…” (Acuña 186). This made it extremely hard for them to progress since they would always be seen as a nobody.

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Nonetheless, both “Mercians” and “In Response to Executive Order 9066” use dialogue to help demonstrate their theme. Okita depicts part of Denise’s confrontation with the narrator through dialogue. Furthermore, Denise’s dialogue highlights her hostile and accusatory tone as she asks a rhetorical question to stress that the poem’s main character is on the side of Japan. In Cisneros’s

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Written works about American Identity are a very common theme amongst writers, including poet Dwight Okita and short-story writer Sandra Cisneros. Dwight Okita is famous for her poem “In Response to Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers,” in which the theme of American identity is portrayed through a 14-year-old girl. In a similar way, Sandra Cisneros’s short story is told by a young girl of Mexican heritage who prefers American culture—in sharp contrast to her deep-rooted Mexican grandmother. Although the overall theme of the two texts is “American Identity,” both Okita's poem and Cisneros's short story delve deeper and portray that cultural heritage and physical appearances do not determine what it

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Dwight Okita 's poem showed us about American identity has more to do with how you experience culture than where your family came from. Details of the texts such as the speaker describing herself as a typical teen girl, seeing that she dislikes chopsticks, something that we associate with Japanese culture, and telling us that she was the typical American meal of hot dogs. In Cisneros 's story, she tells us about the narrator 's American identity contrasts with her awful grandmother’s strong Mexican roots. But the Americans George the narrator based on her looks. Without this liked grandma of first praise for her American children and grandchildren in a barbaric country, which seems to contrast Michele, Keeks, and Juniors love of American culture, cause we can see, based on their heroes and villains game, which takes its references from popular American culture.

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The poem fully develops the idea of the limited of privileges that some might have according to the their races and the racial division. The “borderlands” is the division of a place, but in the eyes of Gloria she makes the character grow up in a place where there is a racial division. The character is in the middle of how of her race is important as her cultural ways get in the way of trying to practice each one of them. The poet writes in both english and spanish to explain how she speaks to the different races she carries. As you read the poem you can feel how the tone changes as the author is speaking of the different events that she goes through in her life.

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Gloria Anzaldúa’s “La Prieta” tell her struggles with identity by talking about prejudices she dealt with while growing up. These prejudices, such as colorism, sexism, and heteronormativity, were not only held by people outside her social groups but within them as well. Anzaldúa goes on to explain the way identity is formed by intersecting factors and not only one aspect of someone’s life therefore denying one factor of identity can cause isolation and self-hatred. The fact that Anzaldúa developed faster than is deemed normal the first struggle in forming her identity.

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Even though the speakers in Okita's poem and Cisneros's short story have strong roots in their foreign cultures, they both feel very much connected to their American identities. The narrators describe how they identify with each culture in both "Mericans" and "In Response to Executive Order 9066" not based on their ethnicity, but where they relate to the most. Both of the authors explain this in different ways. Through "Mericans" the author uses similarities of how the narrator feels compared to how her grandmother feels and by using examples of the American culture.

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