Chimamanda Adichie's The Danger Of The Single Story

Hispanics have been immigrating to America since the beginning of the Spanish Colonial era. Up until the 1920’s Mexican Americans have boomed in rural places in america. The 1920’s was meeting the beginning of a renaissance, a better promised life for both native americans as well as immigrants. Businesses were booming, wages were higher, and the industry was creating a bright future for America. However, Mexican Americans continued to face hardships as well as few successes leading up to the 1920’s. Whether these were Native born Americans with a Hispanic background or newly immigrated Mexicans, Mexican Americans faced the hardship of poverty, discrimination, segregation, and struggles during the 1920’s.

Rodriguez’s main point is to strongly encourage children of immigrant parents to adopt English, the “public language” as their main language in order to become assimilated in the

In Chimamande Ngozi Adichie’s Tedtalk, “The Danger of a Single Story”, Adichie expresses a perplexed tone to argue that someone can not base another person based on one story or one piece of information. Throughout the video, Adichie uses real-life examples to explain the background of her topic. She explains this by using personal stories that she also based others on. Another issue she makes is that others had their own judgments based on little information. When Adichie came to the United States for her education, her roommate was in shock because she had a totally different perspective about her. Not only was her roommate shocked, but so was she. Coming to America she envisioned seeing “blue-eyed people who ate apples…” For Adichie coming

In this century, Mexicans continue to be a minority in America. Most of them, don’t feel American, even though they were born in this country. This goes to tell how unfair the Americans were to the Mexicans. As Acuna states, “on January 19, 1903, the Arizona Legislature passed a law prohibiting mines from working more than eight hours per day underground” (Acuna, 158). This law prohibit that any “white male” should work more than eight hours. However, it was implied by the Americans that Mexicans were not included in this law, therefore, they would still work regular work time, plus overtime at the same minimum wage. Which was absolutely outrages how discriminating the Americans could be. As Acuna mentions, “[the] true purpose was to eliminate foreign-born Mexican who had to work 10-12 hours a day to make ends meet with their lower wages” (Acuna, 158). As a result of this bigoted wage treatment towards the “raza,” many Mexican workers took little money to their

Chimamanda Adichie is a novelist and a narrator who delivered a persuasive speech on what she calls; "The Danger of a Single Story" but in reality what it means is the danger of stereotyping. Dictionary.com defines Stereotype as “A generalization usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.” Adichie delivered her presentation on a very well-known website called Ted.com, with one objective in mind, to prevail upon everyone to share their personal stories with the world so that there no longer is a “single story” defining any one person or group. Although, Adichie is aware that the damage that has been already created may take some time to undo, she felt that

The reason why there were so many Mexican was because after the Mexican-American War, when the United States (US) took two-thirds of Mexican land, part of this land became California. Many Mexicans who lived in that land were still allowed to stay, but they were stripped of their property.3 Thus, most Mexican Americans became poor. One of the few jobs that would allow Mexicans to work in were in cannery farms. These jobs, however, did not pay enough for the Mexicans to afford their living expenses.4 Many Mexican families needed to live with other families in small houses to keep up with the rent.5 Since these Mexican families were living in such poor conditions, they felt they needed to negotiate with the companies and get better wages. There is also the possibility that the effects of American culture on Mexican women swayed them to unionize. Women were becoming more independent, and teenage girls, including Mexicans, wanted to be able to go on dates without chaperones. These teenagers needed to argue with their parents or get around them to succeed in doing this.6 It is possible that these rebellious attitudes toward their parents would create that mindset needed to “rebel” against companies by forming

Mexicans immigrated to the United States back in the 1800's (Stanford, 2006). During 1848 the United States took over a part of Mexico which is now the Southwest (Stanford, 2006). Mexicans living in these areas were Mexican citizens before the acquisition. The United States even went into agreements with Mexico to have Mexicans work in the United States. Mexicans were treated with cruelty, while working the agriculture fields for years. The United States made several agreements with Mexico to have the Mexicans come work in the United States while American soldiers were fighting in the world wars. The labor shortage that the United States went through was reason enough to have Mexicans migrate to the United States as laborers. The United

Some of the very first Mexican’s migrated to the United States in the early 1900’s during Mexico’s Revolution. The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 and lasted until 1921. The United States kept out of the revolution although it did supply Mexico with weapons. Mexico was full of chaos, and there was no law or order within the country. Many early Mexicans left due to this factor, and went to the United States in search for a better life. When the United States entered WWI in 1917, there was a search for unskilled workers. During this time the U.S. was very welcoming and friendly to Mexican immigrants. But, when the United States was no longer in need of the Mexican workers they deported them back to Mexico. The U.S. sent mixed signals to the Mexican immigrants like this all the time. It was believed in the U.S. by governing officials that what may be necessary and beneficial at one point in time, may not be so at another. And, they acted accordingly to this fact.

First it’s hard to get a job because so many places expect you to be bilingual. In this area most employers prefer you to be able to speak English and Spanish. In 2011-2012 the percentage of English language learners was 14% (National Center for Education Statistics). It is because of that percentage that it is understandable that employers would want to hire people that can speak a second language. Even with bilingual people in such high demand most colleges don’t require a second language to graduate (Grove). There are many solutions to this problem, but having immigrants learn English to get citizenship and having colleges require a second language to graduate are two easy

During the 1930s, the Mexican Americans had a tragic on The Great Depression. Back then the Hispanics were also called Chicano because that name is another short version of saying Mexicano. Thousands of people had ran away from Mexico and if they go to the United States, they are considered as a United States citizens so they are marked as white on the United States all the way till the 1930s by law. In that time a lot of Mexican Americans had move to the United States “Mexicans and Mexican Americans make up one of the largest and most rapidly growing minority in the United States.” (Gelletly,4-15-16 Book). This also makes the Mexican and Mexican Americans the second largest minority group in the United States. In the United States the government is in charge and counting on how many people living in the United States, so about 20million Mexican and Mexican Americans are living there. The Great Depression had led all of the people’s life to a bad and poor condition liken living, food, money, jobs, and etc. Especially if they have children(s), it makes it a lot harder for them to work and they got to work extra hard for not only themselves, but also for their family too. One of the important thing why Mexican Americans moved, they all just one to have a good and better life besides them struggling for their life “…Many Mexican choose to

A woman they call Mamacita is completely incapable of trying to having a conversation with someone who speaks fluent English. It states “I believe she doesn’t come out because she is afraid to speak English and maybe this is so because she only knows eight words. She knows how to say: ‘He not here’ for when the landlord comes, ‘No speak English’ if anybody else comes, and ‘Holy smokes’”. (Doc c, paragraph 6) This shows how much she struggles with trying to speak English. You can’t live the American dream if you don’t even know how to speak the American language. English. Secondly, Esperanza explained that her father was limited to what he had to eat because of the language border he had. It states “My father says when he came to this country he ate hamandeggs for three months. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hamandeggs. That was the only word he knew” (Doc c, paragraph 7) .This proves how only knowing how to speak a little bit of the American language stops you from living the American dream. Lastly, Mamacita got so frustrated with the fact that she couldn’t speak English and that’s the only language people were trying to communicate with her with, she just broke down. It states “No speak English, no speak English, and bubbles into tears”. (Doc c, paragraph 12) This proves how not being able to speak

Life as an immigrant in the U.S was not all that great. First, they had to learn English

In her 2009 TED talks presentation,” The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains how a single story presented by the media and books can affect the way a person may perceive others, places, and cultures (Adichie). She goes into details explaining her point through personal experiences where she falsely misunderstood someone based on a single word she heard numerously, and how she was a victim of a common stereotype. According to Adichie, there is never a single story and that people can go through a mental shift of their perspective if they considered various alternatives that differ from the same story that is commonly told.

In the speech, the Danger of a Single Story the writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells us the dangers of believing just one thing about a stereo type. In the speech Adichie repeats the phrase ‘single story’ as I think it is very important to her and by saying it repetitively she gets it to stick in peoples minds. I think the main point of the speech is to tell people the dangers of believing just one story about a country, a person or a religion etc. and to see past the stereotype we can be tricked into believing and instead see past it to see for example the person for who they are, for example, she as an eight year old girl believed a single story about their houseboy, Fide she says, ‘The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor... when I didn’t finish my dinner, my mother would say, “Finish your food! Don’t you know? People like Fide’s family have nothing.” So I felt enormous pity for Fide’s family. Then one Saturday we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.’ This was her single story of Fide’s family, because all her mother had told her was that they were poor she did not see past that and had no idea that anyone poor was capable of creating something so beautiful.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in a TED Talks presentation titled “The Dangers of a Single Story”, introduces her concept of the single story as having an incomplete perspective on topics such as race, gender equality, and sexual identity that translate to how people perceive each other. People who suffer from a single story rely on their partial judgment to make decisions about others rather than to make decisions on what is factual. Being exposed to various literature is crucial in avoiding the dangers of a single story because literature allows readers access to the immense library of knowledge from millions of writers. Readers have the privilege to see the world from thousands of different perspectives which allow individuals to immerse in a world from the author’s point of view and reflect upon their own lives. Consequently, readers make better decisions and are more open-minded compared to individuals who do not study the literature. Studying different types of literature expose readers to a number of perspectives that help develop critical thinking skills essential to understanding their society and promoting diversity. In addition, literature encourages mindfulness crucial in the workplace because it eliminates cultural bias while eradicating partial thought processes that lead to single stories.