Analysis Of Wendy Lee 's ' Peeling Bananas '

The speaker in Li-Young Lee’s poem “Persimmons” has been clearly raised in a bi-lingual, bi-cultural atmosphere. His experiences, although not entirely positive, have helped him grow into the man he is today. By using sensory imagery and “precise” diction along with the informal stanza structure, the speaker shows the reader that, despite his bi-cultural past, he now has realized, thanks to his experiences, that some of the most important things are not “visible” and that he is indeed proud of his ethnicity.

What would he think of our noisy Chinese relative who lacked proper American manners? What terrible disappointment would he feel upon seeing not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food (74). But as Tan grows older she begins to realize that giving up her Chinese heritage for more American customs is not what she truly wants in life. Similarly, “Museum” by Naomi Shihab Nye conceals irony in the authors thoughts. Nye thinks that mistaking the strangers home for the McNay was a big mistake in her young life. But as it turns out this “mistake” unintentionally taught a valuable lesson to the residents of the home. This is reveled to the reader by Nye through a quote from one of the residents “That was my home. I was a teenager sitting with my family talking in the living room. Before you came over, I never realized what a beautiful place I lived in. I never felt lucky before” (80). Including these traces of irony helps add character and comedy to the already entertaining articles.

Though generalization in nature excludes outliers and exceptions, it serves as a perfect method of exemplification in Rodriguez’s essay, as his argument involves not a specific situation or individual, but rather a national culture as a whole. Throughout the essay, Rodriguez states several themes of American society to support his idea that Americans have weak family values. The principle of departure from home is mentioned early in the essay. “The assurance of family–continuity, inevitably–is precisely what America encourages its children to overturn. Become your own man,” Rodriguez states (Rodriguez 310). Americans see dependence on family members as a terrible weakness. Therefore, committing an act like living with one’s parents during an economically difficult time, such as Rodriguez in fact committed, is frowned upon by society. Going away to study, and leaving one’s guardians is a sign of manhood and success. Ignoring the exceptions to this argument, such as the parents that persuade their children to study near home, or the children who come home with much enthusiasm, Rodriguez simply states what he thinks is dominant in American culture. He mentions particular examples that represent the weaknesses in American family life to make a generalization that allows his argument to appear much stronger. Later in the essay, he goes on to compare American values to those of the Chinese. A comment made by Rodriguez’s

“When you sit in your own country, your spirits lift and you are again truly back to the land where things make sense and your life has meaning” – Galarruy Yunupingu.

While reading Joan Didion’s essay “On Going Home” one may be reminded of a sense of home and family. In this essay Didion recreates the feeling one gets when one visits a place from the past or while reminiscing about fond memories. This memory is marked by the reflective thought about the ability to be able to pass this same sense on to another. Didion’s “On Going Home” is like a flood of warm memories leaving you with a single reflective thought.

    Many people see the world and others differently. Just like the two sisters in “Everyday Use”, the two sisters in “Two Ways to Belong in America”, and the father in the letter/short essay “An Indian Father's Plea”. All these people have different past and things they’re going through. The two sisters in “Two Ways To Belong In America” both have their different stories from their past, one likes America the other does not because they betrayed her. Next, the father from “An Indian Father’s Plea” sees America differently because the school was labeled his kid a “slow learner” which made him upset. In addition, the two sisters from “ Everyday Use” argue about a quilt in which they both view differently

Through contrasting family members and views in "Everyday Use", Alice Walker illustrates the importance of understanding our present life in relation to the traditions of our own people and culture. Using careful descriptions and attitudes, Walker demonstrates which factors contribute to the values of one's heritage and culture; she illustrates that these are represented not by the possession of objects or mere appearances, but by one's lifestyle and attitude.

Crazy Brave is the story on how Joy Harjo, the author, overcame and survived abandonment and abuse; alcohol abuse; struggles with failed marriages; and being a single mother. In her memoir she recalls her memories, dreams and visions that helped her find courage and her voice.

Alice Walker, a famous author, stated in her short story, Everyday Use, “Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. “You just will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts.” Each person’s identity is shaped from a culture that is built with the offering of everything in his or her surrounding environment. Culture is one of the most important factors, though there are many other contributing factors, that can influence someone’s perspective on the world because all of their opinions, decisions, and morals are all based off of their surrounding environment. In the poem and story, “My Mother Pieced Quilts” and Everyday Use, they both demonstrate how one’s cultural identity is influenced by his or her surroundings, changing the

People only focuses on where they are but forgets where they came from. In “The Trip Back”, Robert Olen Butler criticizes self and family importance on cultural perspective through the story of Khánh, a Vietnamese man living in Louisiana, who is on a way back of picking up his wife’s grandfather. Butler sets cultural difference viewpoint as the crucial aspect of the story through Khánh’s behavior.

In Li Young Lee’s Persimmons, the idea of cultural identity is a protruding theme throughout the poem. Lee begins the poem as a student from another country, speaking a different language and is immediately shamed for his language barrier. Lee’s initial interaction with mentioning the stark cultural differences he is presented with is the beginning of his struggle to find his own cultural identity. Lowe discusses the importance of recognizing two cultures and mentions the idea of cultural hybridity to help describe literature surrounding being Asian-American (33). Lee’s poem is exemplifying the notion of this cultural identity and goes along with Lowe’s explanation of cultural hybridity by “refus(ing) static or binary conceptions of ethnicity, replacing notions of identity with multiplicity and shifting the emphasis for ethnic "essence" to cultural hybridity.” (33). Lee takes the reader on a journey of discovering his own cultural identity by recalling moments in which he did not necessarily pertain to one culture or the other. Each memory is essential to the creation of his own cultural identity. Another important factor found throughout the poem is the mention of the persimmon which is found in almost every stanza. I will be dissecting this poem into how the different memories interact with each other to dispute this notion of culture as a binary concept, and how the persimmon acts as a conduit to recognize the differences in the culture but also unifies them through the memory of the persimmon.

Ha Jin’s “The Woman from New York”, showcases the grand impacts of adjusting to cultural differences. This story encompasses both the emotional feat and the physical feat in distance that many go through in their lives. It specifically reveals the challenges that arise in adapting to new life back at home when in the past, a person lived elsewhere and much differently. In following the life of Chen Jenli in this story, readers can explore her societal and cultural struggles or they can place themselves in her shoes. In using Chen Jenli as a vessel, “The Woman from New York” addresses various and most certainly relatable difficulties that people like immigrants or expatriates face. However, these individuals can rely on the psychological process of mindfulness to help in adjustment and difficulties.

In the “Two Kinds” story the author illustrates the struggle between her American cultural identity, and her mother’s Chinese culture, as like the characters in the story. The author shows what is the struggle and the conflict that cultural differences creates. The author also uses symbolism, to address the conflicts between the characters in the story.

This week's reading, Daniel Detzner and Patricia Eliason's “Helping Youth Succeed: Bicultural Parenting for Southeast Asian Families: Background on Southeast Asian Parenting,” focuses on the adjustments Southeast Asian immigrant families had to deal with after arriving in the United States. What interested me most about this reading was how Southeast-Asian American families struggled to balance traditional Southeast Asian values and American values; it is a topic to which I personally relate. In Southeast Asian cultures, there is high regard towards the family, for it is “an individual's religious, economic, political, and social core” – “the strongest force in life” (Detzner & Eliason, Eastern Values and Beliefs; Lee, “Changing Family Life

As the matter of fact, the racial diversity in the world is increasing day by day. However, people just need to find out how to live comfortably with other of different history’s background. It is true that the process to overcome the past between nations and the discrimination between races takes an amount of time. Nevertheless, people nowadays are opening a new chapter of life. In reality, people all over the world now do not think about the painful past, the war or whatsoever anymore; instead, they start to shake hand, make business or lifting embargoes which last decades. In the essay, “Vietnamese Youths No Longer Look Homeward” which was written by Nancy Wride focuses and reflects on young Vietnamese