Analysis Of The F Word By Firoozeh Dumas

Based off of personal interactions with Americans, Dumas rightfully characterized them as closed-minded, judgmental, and ignorant. She justifies her characterization of Americans through each anecdote included in her essay. For example, Dumas shows the ignorance of Americans in the opening paragraph when referring to the inappropriate names that Americans referred to her foreign friends and family as. In the first paragraph, she states that Americans degraded names such as Farbod (which translates to" greatness" in Iranian) into silly, disrespectful nicknames such as "Farthead." Another instance in which Dumas vindicates her characterization of Americans is when she mentions one of her first experiences using the name "Julie." The experience,

The author's purpose of this article is to show how “Cuss Time,” should be not necessarily encouraged but protected by our first amendment rights. Granted having the freedom to make a fictional character realistic, in a situation, strong language can be called for. McCorkle giving her son cuss time, she found it “liberating to watch his liberation” because he recognizes the urge to want something much more, the more you are denied it. Rather than when we are given the freedom to choose to do their os that, the real reason being it might lose value to our well being. By limiting our freedom of speech, some of

“My Name” by Sandra Cisneros is a short excerpt from her book The House on Mango Street (1984). In this excerpt, Cisneros narrator is a girl named Esperanza, who is telling us that her name reminds her of a lot of negatives things, including who she inherited it from. Esperanza is trying to convince us that her name is a terrible name, which is built up of negativity and bad history. She state that she was named after her great-grandmother, who was born in the Chinese year of the horse, which they have in common, and is well known for her wild customs which lead to her feeling sad and lonely all her life. Esperanza specifies that her name sound beautiful among Spanish speakers, but to non-Spanish speakers her name is pronoun funny “as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth” she says. She indicated that she would like to baptize herself under a new

Throughout this narrative she uses repetition by repeating the word “name” a copious amount of times. The whole point of this entry was the result her name gave to her life as an immigrant in our country. She was motivated to write when she came to a realization that her ethnic name would become such a barrier for her and her family. In the process of writing this experience her own father wanted to keep her maiden last name a secret for those who would eventually read it. In the beginning of the story she makes a reference to the americans that states “move over cinnamon and nutmeg, make way for cardamom and sumac.” The reasoning behind this is that americans are so use to the same names “spices” that they aren't use to other names “spices” and as times are changing americans have to realize that they is

In the memoir Dumas talks about the challenges she faced everyday by having an unusual name. When Firoozeh Dumas was going into sixth grade, she tried to resolve this issue by

The events in Dumas’ flashbacks prove stereotypical behavior and close-mindedness of Americans hinder assimilation. Dumas tells the reader of the difficulty she has while trying to get a job due to her name. “Even though I had graduated with honors from UC– Berkeley, I couldn’t get a single interview... After three months of rejections, I added “Julie”

In Firoozeh Dumas's narrative, she uses rhetorical terms such as: ethos, logos, repetition, and flashback. “The F Word” explains how to overcome obstacles as an iranian immigrant. She persuades the audience that they can trust her because she's an immigrant; herself. Her move to California impacted her life forever. Dumas appeals to the audience's emotion BA from the University of California, Berkeley. She won a PEN/USA award in 2004 and writes this narrative from a first hand experience; she is someone who can be the voice of those who can relate. Dumas felt the need to write this because she never thought her name would affect her name in America. Surprisingly, she learned that her name would be a conundrum she would have to face for the

In "The F Word," Dumas bases her argument and claim around the experiences she encountered regarding her foreign name in America. Throughout the essay, Dumas constantly argues that Americans are often times closed-minded and ignorant to unfamiliar cultures. In coordination with this argument, she develops her claim that not only Americans, but all people in general need to be more open-minded and accepting towards different cultures. She further supports her claim through different anecdotes in the essay. For instance, the anecdotes of her sixth grade class and job résumé story both support her claim. In the anecdote regarding her sixth grade class, Dumas mentions that her classmates were extremely racist and constantly stereotyped Iranians.

It is not uncommon to sometimes hear or see what here in America is considered to be a strange or different name and decide to make fun of it or the holder of that name. This is a major obstacle that an Iranian immigrant named Firoozeh Dumas, author of “The ‘F-Word” had to face. She illustrates a picture using words about the hardships that her name has brought upon her during her entire life. Throughout her essay, she uses real-life examples, humor, and a conversational tone to show her audience the poverty she faced when transitioning from the Iranian culture to the American culture.

It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist. It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, a name that just did not inspire confidence. It was not at all like such clean, crisp, honest, American names such as Catchcart, Peckem and Dreedle.”

Throughout the context of “Bless Me Ultima,” it is evident that there are many motifs and examples of dichotomy. I believe that Anaya uses the previously mentioned elements of literature in order to provoke his readers’ thinking and help embody a struggle of understanding the world we live in. Motifs in this novel include: family, dreams, religion, education, and the list continues. For examples of dichotomy, the idea of good versus evil is the most vivid in this novel.

When Firoozeh Dumas, who at the time of moving here, had her maiden name which she left unknown, she was taunted by other school children because of her hard to pronounce name. She failed to mention the twists people made of her name, unlike the amusing nicknames her cousins and brothers received. After coming up with her much more Americanized name of Julie, she was no longer an outsider. All of a sudden,

In the story, Funny in Farsi, the author Firoozeh informs the reader about her previous wars that she has gone through. The author relates to her to her internal conflict that she goes through during her lifetime.In the beginning of the story the author tells the reader about her struggle with her name and how people kept on miss pronouncing it. Firoozeh then decides to “...chose the name “Julie”...”(64) to help the people pronounce it with ease. She also changes her name to Julie, due to that fact that now people of the saw her as an American, and without the new name, “...[American] people would

In “No Name Woman,” the theme of silence starts with the elementary words of the memoir stating you must not tell anyone. This statement is ironic because Kingston is in fact telling everyone, giving voice to Chinese customs and the lives that are foregone. As written in her memoir, she states, “You must not tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born.” (Deshazer 308). It is especially notable and ironic that the memoir begins with the phrase “You must not tell anyone.” Her effort in No Name Woman is to write about that which is never said; her unnamed dead aunt, and the outrageous behaviors in her mother’s Chinese village. Kingston was not necessarily silenced direct by a male figure; however, the words said by her mother “You must not tell anyone” is a representation of Kingston father’s authorization voice through her mother’s explanation. Kingston’s effort is also about discovering a voice, as both a Chinese-American

When Abibatou Diallo was first starting school, her name stopped being so hard to pronounce. Her name stopped being what she identified at all. Her teacher took her name and with no objections from Abibatou began calling her Abby. Thinking about being called Abibatou, just fills Abby with a weird feeling now. Not a single person has called her by her full name in such a long time, that it no longer holds any meaning to her. Abby’s name is just one example of how she has been forced to become Americanized since she began her education.