She Stood In Tears Afraid The Alien Corn Analysis

Interpretations of the Bible by minorities is a way of better relating the holy book to a larger audience. This is especially true when reading “She Stood in Tears Amid the Alien Corn”: Ruth the Perpetual Foreigner and Model Minority by Gale A. Yee and Silenced Struggles for Survival: Finding Life in Death in the Book of Ruth by Yolanda Norton. By exercising their right of interpreting the Bible in regard to their own personal experiences, both Norton and Yee successfully portray their own racial struggles in modern America and the injustices thrust upon them because of the color of their skin.

“She Stood in Tears Amid the Alien Corn”: Ruth the Perpetual Foreigner and Model Minority by Gale A. Yee illustrates how the story of Ruth and the

Boaz, Ruth’s employer, employed her for the sake of social benefit instead of the economic benefit in the case of the Americans. Ruth also had blind loyalty to Naomi, who persuades Ruth to seduce Boaz and work for her so she herself does not need to work. Yee also parallels Ruth’s sexualization to the sexualization of Asian Americans in the United States. Since both groups are foreigners, Yee suggests that both are up to the same type of scrutiny. She also explains how foreigners are often portrayed as seductresses in the Bible and how Asians have been “exoticized” by white American males. The most obvious shortcoming when reading Yee’s essay is that Ruth is not Asian American. This will be a problem whilst reading any interpretation of the text, but comparing a story from thousands of years ago to the Asian American experience of today could be considered a bit of a stretch. Although I did find Yee’s essay to be the more poignant argument over Norton, I believe that that is largely because of my own orientation as an Asian American. Because of this shared connection, I am able to more closely relate to Yee’s argument and points than