Kieffer's Dialogic Retrospection

Her family was old-fashioned and well-mannered. When her family’s English was mocked, they kept their mouths shut and laughed along. When her family was ostracized from the rest of the neighborhood, they pretended not to notice, not to care. Her family taught her how to exercise caution, how to be afraid, how to categorize events as either blessings or lessons.

In her memoir the author uses setting to show that language is a challenge for those in her position. The setting of her memoir took place at Leffingwell Elementary in America. Although they didn’t

It was hard for them to fit into Canadian society but still remain true to their Chinese roots. Sek-Lung’s siblings complain that they don’t want to go to Chinese school, although they don't have a problem learning Latin, French and German in their new school. They said that those languages are scientific languages, and Chinese is not. They want to embrace into the languages of their new home and customs, instead of continuing to learn Chinese languages and traditions. Their father and stepmother are very persistent on the subject of the kids going to Chinese school so that they don't completely dismiss their heritage. They don't want their children to lose their identity, but the children want to create their own new identity in Canada and be accepted into Canadian

This section reveals a child that is originally from China but now has relocated to the United States. He began schooling, but has now been completely silent for a year. So he is brought to a new teacher to see if she is able to have an effect, but he quickly becomes angry and refuses to work with her (Igoa, 1995).

The story serves as a backdrop of the speakers own experience as she grows up as a Chinese-American, she becomes town between the different cultures. The speaker struggle is difficult because she is told by her mother not to talk to anyone about what happened. The narrator’s mother inducts her into a long tradition of keeping things secret, the speaker knows nothing about her aunt other then what she was told. The story jumps back and forth between past and present.

In spite of their mother’s hopes, due to the their different upbringings the mother-daughter relationship becomes complicated. The daughters who have grown up in America are not compliant into conforming the Chinese tradition and customs, against their mother’s wishes. In the chapter, “Double Face” narrated by Lindo Jong, the mother who once wished her daughter to have both “American circumstances and Chinese character” 8 (P.308) doubts the feasibility of this mixture, as she sees her now grown daughter with her Chinese looks but all-American made inside. Lindo Jong complains to not being able to teach her daughter, “I couldn’t teach her about Chinese character. How to obey parents and listen to your mother’s mind...

Maxine Hong Kingston prides herself on her personal strength and character, as well as the ability she developed to assert herself into a culture that is not accepting of her differences. As the daughter of Chinese immigrants living in the US, she was tasked with living a double life, straddling the line between her traditional Chinese upbringing and the environment outside of her home in 1960’s California. She was in many ways a perfectly normal and intelligent child. Through her writing she is able to describe complex interactions from her childhood, detailing her reasoning and understanding of the world. Despite this cleverness and flexibility, she begins her account by describing herself as voiceless, seemingly dumb, and explains how it was that she failed kindergarten. Through this story we get a view of how an intelligent young person might experience difficulties caused by cultural differences, a unique perspective from a first generation American.

The multiculturalization of Chinese-Americans not only affects the elderly, but also the young, who grow up differently than their parents. A younger version of June, wanted to rebel against the bounds that her mother had put on her in terms of her culture and states: “I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won’ts.

In her 1976 memoir Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston contrasts the Chinese value of maintaining the “roundness” and the American value of individuality to construct a situation in which cultural values create conflict. Chinese people preserve the “roundness” usually by remaining silent, whereas Americans promote individuality through the use of self-expression. After Maxine realizes that she is obligated to talk and participate during class, she “did not speak and felt bad each time that [she] did not speak” (Kingston 166). The phrase “felt bad” evokes an emotion of sorrow and regret for being unable to complete a certain task. In this situation, someone who tries to assimilate to American customs by speaking during class would feel disappointed

She describes it as an indicator of Chinese American children’s personality; their silence means temporary personality death in American community, and the girls’ American-feminine way to speak means established another themselves. This narrative is helpful to know how immigrant children feel in the new environment where there is a huge language barrier. It is still relevant today considering increasing migration to the U.S. (“U.S. Immigrant Population and Share”) and urgent need for special education for ESL students. In addition, it would let Americans have a more objective view on their own culture, which they take for

She has to learn a new language in order to communicate with the other students. Learning a new language is not easy. It can be time consuming and difficult. She would watch reruns of “Three’s Company” to learn the English language. She would also use the dictionary to look up the meaning of words.

1.The book Child of the Owl talks about an American-Chinese girl called Casey, learning how to accept the culture of China when living in the Chinatown. As we know, at that time American-Chinese neither Chinese or Americans. They are crowded out by native Americans, cause they appearances are same with Asians, the foreigns. On the other side, American-Chinese speaks English, eat American food, have American teachers and friends, learn American culture. Chinese all gather together to live in Chinatown, the narrow surrounding. They speak Chinese, use Chinese Writing, eat Chinese food, all the people around them are Chinese, learning Chinese culture. That’s the unique point that Casey has. Before Casey came to Chinatown, her father Barney let her live in the house of Uncle Phil. His two daughters Pam-Pam and Annette. They have done whatever they can to blend in with White Americans. Annette constantly curls her hair, while Pam-Pam only wears pink frilly dresses, like a princess. School in Chinatown is a disaster because Casey has no friends and students never talk to her, teachers also dislike for her inability to speak or write Chinese.

Ring~~~! (Silence…) Weeeeha! Followed by the signal of bell and the applause of students, a dozens of international students quickly gather outside the hallway like a swarm of bees. The school is over! As if college students just finish their final, the joy of going home is inexpressible. Getting excited to discuss about their next plan, they start off talking with an odd but familiar language, a language people could often hear but do not understand. It is Chinese. They go on murmuring about their activities after school while neglecting the people who are different from them. From an instructor’s perspective, they fear the language barriers as if they are trying to isolate themselves from the others, and therefore, continue to live within their own ethnic group. However, amongst the group of these international students, there is a shy, tiny teenage girl who hesitates to speak, as if she is trying to lead the conversation using another language, English. This is only her first year studying in a strange, new environment, but there she is, trying to adapt. She is someone special. People called her Cassandra, and she has

In the essay the struggle to be an All American girl, Elizabeth Wong gives an excerpt of her difficult experience of being one cultural and growing up in a society completely different and wanting to be apart of another society. Her mother continued to keep wong and her brother in chinese school so she could stay in touch with people and get an understanding. At the age of ten Wong began to study American culture at the same time Wong was still learning about the Chinese cultural which she was apart of , she hated it so much. Wong seen China's culture to be basic, for her area growing up in chinatown it was normal and a part of life. The hatred Wong had for her cultural was intense, it came to the extent of Wong disliking China's flag, claimed

The main theme of the short story deals with a culture clash between two completely different societies – China and England. Mr. James who comes from England is a disrespectful, snobbish and an ungrateful person, “He arrived to find the floor carpeted with insect corpses (…) what, his email said, was the school going to do about this?”, (line 122-124). The Englishmen is very arrogant compared to Miss Coral. The expectancy that he has about the apartment where he is going to live for the next six months are very different from the one of Miss Coral, “She expects him to be pleased like she would. He takes a quick look around, runs a palm over the arm of a beige, faux-leather sofa and asks when the flat will be cleaned”, (line 53-55). This quotation clarifies the big contrast between England and China - they differ greatly from one another. Miss Coral would have been pleased to live in such an apartment. Only senior teachers are allowed to live in an apartment by themselves, “Only the most senior teachers get their own apartments”, (line 52). Mr. James appears rude but the protagonist Miss Coral on the other hand is incredibly enthusiastic about the apartment and its vastness. Contrary to Mr. James she is very patient and humble even though she is taking in a lot from Mr. James and her boss, which is a typical behaviour for a Chinese