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Cultural conflict
Cultural conflicts example
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Cultural conflict
Cultural conflicts example
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Chinese-American struggles is the most prominent theme within Fae Myenne Ng’s book, Bone. Fae displays her personal experience through a first person point of view of growing up in the United States from a very young age in the book. She takes the reader with her throughout her journey — starting from the very beginning. The main character within the book is a little girl named Leila, the protagonist, in which the story is surrounded in Chinatown, San Francisco. Growing up in this setting made it difficult for her to have a normal childhood.
In Bone, Ng commentates on the fragility of an immigrant’s position through the experiences of a Chinese immigrant, Leila. Fractured by time before and after Ona’s suicide; colored in perception by historical discrepancies in identity; torn in position between inside and outside Chinatown; Leila must repair semblances of two lives to save herself from becoming nothing. Moreover, Ng captures the vulnerability of immigrants by employing ambiguous language, multifaceted layers of translation, and applying elusive qualities to constitute an individual fully immersed in American or Chinese culture. On the edge of nothing and otherness, Leila’s expression of her experiences allows her to find her identity within the context of America. Ng utilizes
Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson highlights the difficulties of growing up as a young Native woman in modern times. The main protagonist, Lisamarie Hill, is gifted with supernatural ability allowing her to communicate with the spirit world. Constantly struggling to find her modern Native identity, she turns to her grandmother, Ma-ma-moo, for guidance and advice. Thus, allowing her to begin reconciliation with the spirit realm. However, once her grandmother passes, Lisamarie must, not without difficulty, rely on herself and native spirits to continue her journey.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman introduces the reader to the Hmong culture and to the Lee’s family experience with western medicine. Throughout the book it talks of the past interactions of the Hmong and Americans, showing reasoning why the Hmong already mistrust Americans and western medicine. Following World War II, the Hmong culture was rejected and ridiculed by the Chinese for not assimilating with their culture, causing many to move to the U.S. Upon arrival, they were still ridiculed, harassed, and violated. In the Hmong’s eyes, they deserved respect and welfare for their sacrifices in the war.
B: Australians are used to thinking that a journey is physical but they never think that the journey could be a spiritual one. In Jackie French’s 1993 novel, ‘Walking the Boundaries’ Martin, the main character, goes on a physical and spiritual journey where he learns about his family’s past and the importance of looking after the land. A: Thesis Statement: Jackie French uses third person narrative, an obvious plot and descriptive language to intrigue and engage the reader to see the physical and spiritual journey that Martin goes on.
Many immigrants have an extremely difficult time migrating to different parts of the world due to cultural differences, language barriers, and homesickness. Nowadays, there are translators and help available for those that are migrating from different countries. However, what if someone had migrated to the United States and barely had any of that support? The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is an incredibly touching book speaking of the struggle of the Hmong immigrants and the walls that were built between them and Americans, particularly the American doctors and medical system. The book focuses on a particular child, Lia Lee, and her family - specifically her parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee.
Eden Robinson’s Monkey beach is set in the small, coastal village of Kitamaat in western B.C., home to the province’s Haisla community. Robinson’s characterization of a Haisla family living in present day Kitamaat exposes the challenges that are faced by the Aboriginal people conserving their traditions, values and social mores under the dominating influence of Canada’s West Cost society. She frames these concerns by following the struggles of Lisamarie (Lisa) Hill as she reconciles the ideologies of her modern Canadian upbringing with the often-discordant beliefs of her First Nation heritage, which becomes more complicated by the experience of the supernatural appearances that only Lisa can see. Lisa’s relationship with the spirit world allows her to transgress the history of abuse and reconnect with her heritage, however, she must struggle with North American ideologies which consider the supernatural as flawed. With the help of Ma-ma-oo (Lisa’s grandmother) she begins to gain control within the spirt world, thus re-connecting with her heritage.
Mean Spirit, although a work of fiction, is based around the real life stories and incidents surrounding the discovery of oil in Oklahoma on indigenous land. The many killings and land swindles recreated in the novel show how indigenous lives became sacrificed in the interest of natural resources and money. Using stark imagery, Hogan speaks to the devaluing and elimination of indigenous lives, stating in Solar Storms, “I learned how I came from a circle of courageous women and strong men who had walls pulled down straight in front of them until the circle closed, the way rabbits are hunted in a narrowing circle, but some lived, some survived this narrowing circle of
The power of stories manifests itself in literature, film, and more generally life. Stories inspire, provide hope, and bring understanding. Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony permeates the strength of stories. Ceremony follows the story of Tayo, a half white Native American plagued by the invasion of European culture, as well as his own past of war and loss. However, through the folk stories of his Laguna culture, as well as the advice he has been given to embrace his past, Tayo is able to see the world more clearly.
The book focuses on a young boy named Arnold Spirit who shows persistence and bravery as he defies all odds and strides towards a happier more successful life than his parents and ancestors before him. Arnold is a bright, inspiring young boy who grows up with little fortune and is destined to continue down the path of a poor, misunderstood Indian. However, his fate changes for the better when a spark lights the fire inside of him to strive to pursue a better, more flourishing life as he makes an extraordinary decision to transfer to an all-white school for a worthier education. However, the drastic change of schools puts a burden on his family to get him to school as well as leads to extreme bullying from not just kids at his new school but also from his fellow Indians in his hometown. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I learned that it doesn 't matter what your situation is and what you are expected to accomplish in your lifetime or what standards have already been set for you because you can be whoever you want to be with hard work, ambition, and confidence.
The experiences related and recorded in the novels The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao, and Obasan by Joy Kogawa give great insight to the internal and external struggles East-Asian immigrants face in the Western World, specifically Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, and Japanese-Canadians. Although the situations have certainly improved since the mid twentieth century, many of the issues and struggles the characters in the novels face are still real and ever-expanding for over five percent of the U.S. population. To
While Kingston is evidently affected by her mother’s talk-stories, she does not know what to believe. She struggles to find a sense of home as she has never been to China and America is filled with ghosts, the foreign and unknown. Brave Orchid faces a similar problem in which America is alien but China is far away and inaccessible. “Shaman” illustrates that hard work pays off in China but does not give way to progress in the United States, at least for Brave Orchid. While the Kingston’s mother was able to become a doctor
The protagonist from “The Turn of the Screw”, is perceived to be despearate as she tries to achieve her dream but her personal pride leads her to an unstable condition. The author depicts the Governess believing that to attain her goal of gaining attentionby her employer, she must be a hero. Therefore, she invents lies about seeing her predessors haunting her pupils. Nonetheless, the more times James makes the Governess mention the ghosts the more she believes they are real and they, “want to get them (the children)” (82). The Governess is blinded by making it appear she sees the ghosts that she looses herself in her own lies leading her to an unstable condition of not knowing what is real or not.
Overcoming a challenge, not giving up, and not being afraid of change are a few themes demonstrated in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Perhaps the most prominent theme derived from the novel is defying the odds, or in other words rising above the expectations of others. Junior Spirit exemplifies this theme throughout the entirety of the book. As Junior is an Indian, he almost expects that he will never leave the reservation, become an alcoholic, and live in poverty like the other Indians on the reservation—only if he sits around and does not endeavor to change his fate. When Junior shares the backstory of his parents, he says that his mother and father came from “poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people” (11).
During it 's two hour runtime it depicts the both the hardships of pioneering in uncharted territories of medicine as well as the racial discrimination and segregation of America in the 40s. It is a mirror of both great capacity for good and progress as well as inhumane detachment from one another based on race such as with Vivian Thomas or even gender such as with Dr. Helen Taussig. The struggle to advance the discipline of medicine with all cost and at the same time bringing us closer together as human beings under the same purpose no matter the differences is worthy of discussing. The ethical dilemmas depicted on the movie can be divided in two categories; social and medical.