Lost Cultural Identity In An Unknown Girl By Moniza Alvi

The two writings Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan, and The Memoirs of a Rebel Princess, by Abida Sultaan, were able to reach me and affect me as an audience through their tone and purpose (Jack and Pryal 2016). Both of these stories are literacy narratives, thus the authors are writing about their own experiences of learning to read and to write. Each of these stories depicts the difficulties these authors endured before they were able to successfully accomplish their education.

The Lost Girl is a beautiful, humble picture story book created by Ambelin Kwaymullina and illustrated by Leanne Tobin. Kwaymullina, the author, is from the Palyku people for the Pilbar region of Western Australia and is an Aboriginal legal academic. Tobin is a decentant of the Dharug, the traditional Aboriginal people of Greater Western Sydney (Kitson, 2014). Both creators have actively employed their prior knowledge, values, beliefs and culture to put together this engaging and informative picture story book, perfect for young children. Tobin uses vivid colours to represent the red sandy appearance of the Australian dessert outback and the native flora, in an effort to craft a naturistic melody. Kwaymullina writes of sequenced events

Each individual has a specific culture that can they can use to identify oneself. I discovered my own cultural identity with the help of many aspects I have faced throughout my life. Culture is an important role in everyone’s life. Culture can be discovered by seeing how different an individual is from someone else. It can also be seen even when you don’t realize it. My family have been a major impact on discovering my cultural identity. My cultural identity would not exist if it weren’t for previous experiences I have encountered up until this point. My cultural identity is involved in many aspects of my life because of how my family influences my culture, how my view on culture differs from everyone else, and how society views me.

In “The Beep Beep Poem”, her structure of the poem is freely organized and she indents when she wants to. As well as in the “Kidnap Poem”, even when she didn’t finish the word she still moves to the next line. Despite didn’t fully finish writing the word, she wrote part of the word “kidnap” being “kid” in one sentence, then “nap” in the next. This technique of using free verse creates a unique arrangement of language. There are no two poems written by Giovanni that looks identical or the same, she always has a different twist and arrangement to each one which makes it special. As well as proves that there are unlimited patterns she can form in her mind, in which talks to the idea of her style being very free and uncontrolled. Furthermore, using free verse built a different structure in every poem making all of her poem different and unique in its own way just like who she is. Free verse allows the lines in the poem to fade away between long and short lines. This gives the reader a conversational writing style that she’s sharing with them.This usage of poetic features where every poems and lines is arranged differently reinforce how she’s uncontrolled and isn’t restricted to any rules, she doesn’t follow a single pattern in which emphasize her

The poem does not follow a rhyme scheme or meter, which means that there is rhythm in the poem and it makes the poem more like a song. The poem has four stanza’s and has five lines within each stanza.

How do you deal with stereotypes towards yourself or others that have experienced them? People are stereotyped by their physical features and by the information we know about a certain group. They are judged by their physical features instead of seeing what they are really capable of doing. Usually not being involved in such a diverse community can cause that because they are accustomed to what's near them. Exploring and learning about others will help shatter stereotypes. We'll explore in Sucheng Chan and Judith Ortiz Cofer essays on how they've been stereotyped and what they've done to shatter the quo.

Inequalities within minorities is not limited to economic unfairness but also social inequity. The second story that shows how inequality within minorities is “The Myth of the Latin Woman” by Judith Ortiz Cofer. “The Myth of the Latin Woman” is an essay based on the real life experiences of Judith Ortiz Cofer. The story talks about the racist inequalities she has went through as a women of Hispanic descent. “a young man, obviously fresh from a pub, spotted me and as if struck by inspiration went down on his knees in the aisle. With both hands over his hearts he broke into an an Irish tenor’s rendition of Maria from West Side Story”. The author retells one of her experiences from earing graduate credits one summer and she is met by someone whom ignorantly makes racists remark simply because she is Latina. Furthermore in the story Cofer mentions how people gave the man a round of applause. “amused fellow passengers gave his voice the round of gentle applause” (Page 61). This shows that it is acceptable to generalize an ethnic group into a character from West Side Story. In addition to the unfair generalization, Cofer is confronted unfair expectations. I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature early”. This is unfair assumption made to Cofer. She is treated like a vegetable rather than a girl who traditionally grows into womanhood. This also generalizes Latin women to be matured at a young age. Which is incorrect just because Latinas fall into a small category in society

Throughout the poem the tone and harmony is showing many different moods including shyness, anger and calmness. An example of shyness is at the start of the poem “softy, silently it swishes”, an example of anger is in the middle of the poem “it thumps, it sprays it rips at shores, its ozone spray”, and finally at the end of the poem calmness is shown, “it spends its strength, it sings, it sighs. The wave recedes”. One aspect of the poem I find intriguing is the alliteration and personification. For example, “it sighs, it sings, it seeks”.

Every individual, no matter who they are, will all face challenges that result from their backgrounds and cultures. Born in Calcutta, India and later moving to the United States, Amin Ahmad was an individual who discovered this harsh truth firsthand. In his essay, “I Belong Here,” Ahmad reflects on his experience of being treated differently from those around him based off his cultural background. He analyses the emotional barrier that forms between the journey of immigration and the continuous feeling of inferiority based solely on the desire to belong. The article is written to provide a different point of view; one focused on introducing to the world the challenges and emotions immigrants face after starting the journey towards a new life.

My cultural identity is female. To say this is to identify myself as having personal characteristics pertaining to femininity, as oppose to masculinity. Femininity is often synonymous with sensitivity, passiveness, gentleness, nurturing, empathy, and compassion. My cultural identity as a female has influenced several aspects of my life, including family, social development, education, and health. It affects the roles I take on in my family. It affects how I socialize with other people, shaping personal relationships. It influences my education and health. For example, I was raised with the idea that women are caretakers and must be housewife material. As such, I have taken on multiple roles; I am my parents’ housekeeper, my grandparents’ chauffeur, and my cousins’ sitter. Consequently, this caretaker persona extends towards my social life. For example, I become a “mother hen” with my friends. In one particular case, my friend was drunk and incapable of taking care of herself at a party, so I looked after her until she was well enough to go home. As a woman, my caretaker persona has led to healthy relationships, based on communication and nurturance. In regards to education, I am a psychology major. Psychology is a female-dominant field in academia; this is most likely because psychologists often utilize traits common to females (e.g., compassion, sensitivity, empathy), so women tend to gravitate towards this

The author uses the poems structure and stanzas to help get her point across. The poem is composed of four stanzas with a total of 25 lines. Each stanza signifies a different part of the child’s life. The stanzas have irregular lengths and structures. The numbers of lines in each stanza vary from five to seven. Piercy separates the pieces of the story by stanzas to tell the girls story so the audience could see how she was treated since birth. For instance the first stanza talks about her birth and adolescent years, while the third and forth stanzas talk about the end of her life.

When reading through the different perspectives in Cristina Henriquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans, each perspective provides a different sense of emotion as each individual travels to the United States in search of the American dream. In Alma, Arturo, and Maribel’s case, the family travels in search of more adequate health care and better school systems to suit Maribel’s needs after her accident. By taking in their perspectives, it is nearly impossible not to root for their characters. Although immigration is such a pressing and more challenging topic to debate in the United States, the book raises the question of, “Wouldn’t you do the same for your family?” There are a numerous amount of influences in making this decision that tell what we should and should not believe when addressing this issue including family, friends, the media, politics, etc. With these influences, it is difficult to make an unbiased decision.

Unlike Melanie Scheller who identifies her cultural identity based on "lack of indoor plumbing" (320) and her family living conditions, I identify myself by my nationality. For me being Ukrainian means not only be born in Ukraine, it means feel that you are Ukrainian in your soul and in your hart. Being Ukrainians means be able to fight and to die for your country any minute; it means be so proud because you are Ukrainian; it means be happy because you live in this country. At the time, when Ukraine was a part of USSR, my family was persecuted by government of USSR because their point of view on life in Ukraine. In my childhood, I used to like listen to my grandparents' stories. My grandfather when he was 12 years old, became a member of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. When grandpa was 16

In the world today, there are more and more multicultural people who can speak different languages; and they need to choose different tongues to correspond to the immediate community they belong. Language makes people remember their own cultures and contribute to their own identity. In “Mother Tongue,” a short story written by Amy Tan; she strongly narrates the stories about her different experiences and life comprehensions based on varying types of English she speaks throughout life. Wandering on two different languages; Amy discovers the importance and power of language: “the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth” (Tan 38). As human beings, language is the tool that contains the mighty powers; it forcefully affects people’s lives, personality, and lifestyles. Moreover, language is the “bridge” of communication between people. However, for Amy, the views on mother’s language are changing from the sense of shame into pride; as she is feeling the effects that two different types of English are giving to her as well as their respective symbols in her mind.

“An Unknown Girl” by Moniza Alvi is a free verse poem about the author’s experience getting her hand hennaed in an Indian bazaar. Throughout the poem, Alvi makes use of structure techniques like end-stopped lines, occasional rhymes, language, imagery, and changes in tone to explore different aspects of the concept of identity.