Pros And Cons Of Being An American Language
Stuart gave well historical accounts of how the much mixing of people from different cultural background and race conglomerate to form cultural setting currently present in the Caribbean islands. The literature from this novel can be successfully applied in learning institution teach race and ethnic relation courses to assist students in gaining a significant understanding the Barbados inhabitants history. Though the author of the book speaks of the assimilation race in a very compassionate way, she efficaciously demonstrates the how the spectrum of color originated in this Island. According to her, this societal predicament connects to colonialism; the slave trade from Africa to American as well as the oppressive injustices came with the expansion of sugar plantations to meet the booming market demand during the period. The slaves worked under a harsh environmental condition where their masters denied them fundamental rights of human being.
Jamaica Kincaid was born in Antigua, an island located in the Carribeans. She experienced life on Antigua under English rule, which ended in 1981 when she was thirty two years old. In her memoir “On Seeing England for the First Time”, Kincaid portrays England’s influence over Antigua in a negative aspect through her use of repetition and diction. Kincaid expresses her dislike of England by repeating certain phrases.
Kincaid Paragraph Growing up in the Caribbean island of Antigua, a colony of England in the time prior to 1981, Jamaica Kincaid was exposed to overwhelming control and the alienation of her culture. She depicts the suppression of her people and their beliefs, at first praising, but later denouncing the propaganda that England ingrains in their everyday lives and customs. Initially, Kincaid establishes an inclination towards patriotism to reveal the social customs that England embeds within the minds of its people. Kincaid then switches to scathing condescension, emphasizing her eventual condemnation of England’s forceful methods of conformity. Kincaid’s anaphora of “Made in England”, referring to the labels on her family’s food and clothing,
Murdoch, explores how the transformations engendered by the slave trade facilitated the development of the ethnic and cultural patterns that are present in today’s society. He claims that the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands will perpetually be binded to the cruel injustice faced by their African descendants. Murdoch specifically examines the relationship between sugar and slavery in Jamaica and its governance over society’s perception of racism and discrimination. The author believes that the combination of the white merchants and black slaves in the sugar industry instigated a community that developed an overlapping division of race and class. He affirms that the whites were subdivided into two main social statuses during the era; the “principal whites” and the “poor whites”.
Jamaica Kincaid emphasizes her feelings toward Britain by employing a strict and severe tone in her essay. Using several rhetorical strategies, she criticizes Britain’s monopoly over Antigua while pointing out examples from her past that illustrate and defend her opinions. Jamaica questions England’s appearance at first glance through her rhetoric. While she does suggest that the country can seem beautiful on the outside, her experience didn’t match up with the hype. She was
History of the Caribbean has always largely in part been taught hand in hand with Latin American history as there are common links from colonial times. This historian in the end of the 18th century used basic sourced like literature to paint one of the most extensive stereotypes of the Africans. “Flat noses, thick lips, wool ‘like the bestial fleece’ instead of hair, the large breast of women, their bestial and fetid smells.” This is relevant to race in Latin America as longs interpretations had to do in specifics with race that tie in to interpretations of the black race in Latin America. This biased interpretation in turn affected other white historians.
My parents are both immigrants from Haiti. I was born in America. Growing up, my parents spoke Creole, the national language of Haiti, and English at home. As I got older my resistence to speak their native tongue began to grow. I don’t know why I began to reject the language as my own.
Language is used to convey a message as well as connect people to a particular culture or ethnicity he or she identifies with. People who share the same language share a bond and pass their history through language. In chapter one of The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom Joanne Kilgour Dowdy speak about growing up in Trinidad and her mother insisting on her speaking in the colonizer's language rather than her native Trinidadian language. Joanne Kilgour Dowdy felt as if her identity was being pushed to the side when she was forced to speak “Colonized English” when she was at school or around the social elite of her community, and felt ridiculed from her peers for speaking proper as if she was white or of the elite social class. Dowdy major concern was how to have the freedom to go back and forth from home, language to the public language without feeling judged from both sides of her
Jamaican domestics also have a tendency of lying about their work experiences. Jamaican domestics defended themselves saying they are perceived as aggressive because they don't take anything that is thrown at them
The theme of miseducation is brought up multiple times throughout the novel, and it can be traced back to the beginnings of Jamaican colonization. For instance, before raping Irie’s great-grandmother, Ambrosia, Sir Glenard says, “It will only take a few moments my dear. One should never pass up the opportunity of a little education, after all” (299). Under the veil of giving others the gift of education and civility, many, such as Sir Glenard, were able to take advantage of the colonized. What may have been intended to be a gift ended up just negatively affecting people such as Ambrosia.
Most Americans speak one or two languages. However, with 162 languages spoken in the United States, English is often not a common language. If America were to have a national language, it could create connections that can help the nation and stop the discrimination non-English speakers. A common language that is spoken in a nation can bring different cultures and traditions together. To have English as America’s main language can increase economy.
In America’s current state, individuals are divided and judged based on one’s race, religion, political affiliations, sexual orientation, nationality, and socioeconomic status. And although it is true that American society is a fusion of various cultures and religions, America is, however, a divided country. Furthermore, America is known as a melting pot nation alive with many individuals of different cultural backgrounds assimilating into and integrating with American culture, all the while maintaining their cultural identity. Be that as it may, various cultural backgrounds can cause negative ramifications and create situations of disharmony among diverse cultures, and people are still discriminated against and attacked for their differences
Jamaica Kincaid 's A Small Place examines the historical/social context of how Antiguans dealt racism through slavery after an oppressive European colonization. Kincaid reveals that European colonization resulted in Antigua dealing with injustice such as corruption and poverty. She argues Europeans and Americans traveling to Antigua are focused on the beautiful scenery, which is not a correct representation of the day to day lives of Antiguans. Although racism has many negative effects, Kincaid seemed to state the benefits of Europeans’ colonialism and how it contributed to her life such by introducing the English language and the library that helped her to become a writer. Kincaid states that we “cannot get over the past, cannot forgive and cannot forget” (26); therefore, Kincaid feels that the past influences the present.
However, most of the time, it is not as extreme as Faith’s. In Faith’s case, she has only had a goal to fit into a culture that she grew up with which is Britain’s culture. She does not have any interest in Jamaica’s but when she saw violences that her people get because of racism, she is deeply hurt. Thous, she comes back to look at her whole life and learn to appreciate her culture after coming back from Jamaica, her life was changed.
Standardization of the English Language English was not the original indigenous language of Britain. The first arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, the inhabitants of the country spoke Celtic languages. Yet English shows few dialects brought by the Germanic invaders. Nor was the subsequent growth of English within Britain a smooth or inevitable trajectory. After the Norman invasion, English was not the first language of the ruling classes.
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