Beyond Expectations Summary

Ever seen something that may look odd to you? Or someone that shows up and you seem to wonder why they’re doing what they’re doing? Do you feel a little unpleasant about their actions? That’s totally normal, because that’s what we call cultural collision. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, he shows how cultural collision affected the Ibo culture in Nigeria because of colonization and the arrival of Europeans who brought forth a new religion, a new lifestyle and ways that challenge the Ibo culture. The conflict in Things Fall Apart is the struggle between change and tradition. Chinua Achebe demonstrates Okonkwo’s daily life as a struggle to resist changing from

On the very first day of the class, Introduction to the Black Experience, we learned that people are defined by their culture and geography. We are also defined by the gaze of others and our own gaze. This realization led me to contemplate what the “black experience” means to me. As a first generation Haitian-American woman at Wellesley College, it has become clearer to me how important the language and culture of parents has been in shaping my identity. I have also begun to think more critically about how my identity as a woman of color separates me from black brothers as well as my white peers at Wellesley.

Martin Diamond published “Revolution of Sober Expectations” in 1974. At that time he listed three evidences of a “sober revolution”. First, was that the revolution was really only “half a revolution.” Secondly, that the “dedication to abstract principles of liberty” were an important means for sobriety and lastly, that because of the way the “Constitution confronted democracy” the founders were able to accept democracy.

Unlike many African Americans who attend church on Sundays, I attend Jummah on Friday’s and attend Eid festivities with Guineans around New York City, as well as carry myself the way Guinean females are raised: with a certain degree of modesty and reservation. In addition, due to my Guinean background, West-African name, and clear, modulated English, I am also an outsider to my neighbors in Brownsville currently, and was teased as a child. My drive and motivation to achieve the American Dream, especially for the sake of parents, in Brownsville, an inner-city African American, is seen as an affront to their perceptions of blackness. Many of my neighbors have confessed that they believe that “I am too good” or “act white.” However, despite this, when I am faced with racism or acts of white supremacy, I feel emboldened to act, where I do not call upon my Guinean identity. In those moments, I especially identify with the African- American identity. I feel a dire responsibility to assist African-American in my community, more so than I feel a responsibility to help my family members in Guinea. In all, when asked about my identity, I respond with, “My parents are from Guinea, but I was born in America.” I am comfortable, and again, proud to identify as a Guinean-American, despite the challenges with identifying as either. This conflict is drawn upon, once again, in Georges Woke Up Laughing where Schiller and Fouron

For my ethnographic interview, I choose to interview a gentleman who I recently met at the church that I attend. For confidentiality reasons, I will refer to him as James Madison. The main focus of this ethnographic interview is to engage, explore and listen to the interviewee’s personal story. As defined in Culturally Competent Practice, by Doman Lum, cultural identity development theory is influenced at various stages of life. It is part of the growth of knowledge that a person is impacted. Although James Madison is proud that he is from Ghana, Africa, his cultural identity has changed drastically due to the knowledge that has made him grow into “a mature mindset that is like no other person in Ghana” as he describes.

Coates not only writes about the feeling of not knowing your identity as a black person, but also finding it amongst other black people at Howard University. Coates shed light on many different aspects of contemporary

The need to create distinct human beings affected by culture and society is one of Paule Marshall’s concentrated thrust and perhaps this interest into the interrelationship between character and culture parts from her own background. In this book Paule Marshall focuses on a woman who shares similar aspects of her life, both born in New York, having its roots in the Caribbean and both bringing back to the African past. One as well as the other has struggled as a black woman living in a white society that had weakened her sense of self. The book explores the individual search for identity and also the need for integration within a community.

Race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, poverty, and sexual orientation, all play a role in developing one’s identity and more often than not, these multiple identities intersect with blackness. Being that American society has deemed colored people and populations as minoritarian subjects, African diaspora people can be seen making safe spaces for themselves to survive as individuals and as a part of communities.

Expectations played a very large role in, “ The Outsiders” written by S.E. Hinton, for the Socs and the Greasers lives. The expectations influenced the way that the Socs and Greasers lived and the way that they have acted in the book.

“Who are ‘you’? How does your sociology vita – race or ethnicity, class, gender, family history – affect your answer?” (Jefferson). In our society, we tend to define ourselves of who we are, but we often do not realize that our race and social status plays a role in how others view us and vice versa. Margo Jefferson’s “Scenes from a Life in Negroland” gives an insight on this concept. We define race and ethnicity as a certain group of people that share common backgrounds, such as Caucasian, African American, Native American, etc., and status as where someone ranks in society, whether it is the upper, middle, or lower class. Jefferson gives numerous incidents from her childhood that deals with how people perceive them based on that they were African Americans thriving in life, especially during a time of racial tensions in the 1950’s. The essay also provides examples when they, in turn, looks at others in her life based on their social status and race. Based on her experiences, the way people see and define who someone is in society is affected by that particular person’s race and status.

“At the end of the 20th century, when identity formation is increasingly mediated by technological media, who learns what, and how is it learned?” (Ibrahim, pg. 349) “How do differently raced, gendered, sexualized, abled, and classed social identities enter the process of learning a second language?” (Ibrahim, pg. 349) “In a postcolonial era when postcolonial subjects are constituting part of the Metropolitan ‘centers’, what is the ‘critical pedagogy’ required in order not to repeat the colonial history embedded in the classroom relationship between white teachers and students of color?” (Ibrahim, pg. 349) “At a time when the North American blackness is governed by how it is negatively located in a race conscious society, what does it mean for a Black ESL learner to ‘take up’ and acquire Black English as a Second Language (BESL)?” (Ibrahim, pg. 349) “In other words, what symbolic, cultural, pedagogical, and identity investments would a learner have in locating oneself politically and racially at the ‘margin’ of representation?” (Ibrahim, pg. 349-350) “In the case of African youths, whose

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor and critic. He is mainly known for his trilogy that investigates, using fiction, the history of Nigeria. The trilogy begins with Things Fall Apart, followed by No Longer at Ease and ended with Arrow of God. Furthermore, in this critically analytical essay, through a feminist perspective, a chapter of his second novel, No Longer at Ease, published in 1960, will be discussed. The setting of the novel is Lagos, Nigeria and Umuofia, Nigeria during the 1950s, before Nigeria attained independence from Great Britain. The novel, No Longer at Ease begins with Obi Okonkwo on trial, charged for accepting a bribe. However, using flashback, the author takes us back to the point before Obi’s departure

In order to get to know my interviewee, E. E., it is important to learn about her distinct heritage. She has such an interesting story that even prior to this interview, I found myself eager to learn more about her and her life in Nigeria. While researching about the Nigerian culture, I gathered information related to traditional language, religion, diet, values, gender roles, and health practices. In doing so, I was able to get a glimpse of what it might be like to live in Nigeria and ultimately, I gained insight to the culture that made E. E. the inspiring person she is today.

Achebe’s image of the African people is depicted extensively in his novel. Achebe gives us a look at life in an African village and what it was like during African colonialism. Tribal life in Nigeria is told from an inside perspective through the life story of a man, Okonkwo.

Because Ifemelu is not born in America, she discovers race and racial inequality when she moves there as a result of receiving a Princeton fellowship. In Nigeria, there is no talk about race. Everyone is seen as Nigerian because they are born there. Ifemelu explains that “[She] came from a country where race was not an issue; [she] did not think of [herself] as black and [she] only became black when [she] came to America” (359). Her expectations of America areis that there are great educational opportunities and plenty of jobs, but what she discovers is racial