Mr. Pirzada's Cultural Identity

Mac Hammond is able to use colorful words, such as butcher knife, throughout “Halloween” that brings the reader closer to the poem. Halloween is a nostalgic holiday for most people and there are specific words that will trigger those memories. Hammond exclaims, “The butcher knife goes in, first, at the top / And carves out the round stemmed lid” (1-2). There are numerous words used just in these two lines that can connect us with the poem. No one can talk about Halloween or pumpkins without the word carved involved. Whenever one starts to carve a pumpkin, they have to carve out that circle at the top so the center can be accessed. Hammond does a great job of painting that picture by using the words such as “carves”,

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth is comprised of eight short stories about different Indian families’ struggles in America, many of them going through the immigrant experience. The conflicts are with friends and family, and also with themselves, as each of them attempt to find their own identity along with fitting in with the rest of society. One of the causes of these struggles that because the families in the stories are mixed in terms of generation. Many of the adults in the stories were first generation immigrants from India, while many of the children were raised in the United States, which is the second generation. This led to blending of culture and at the same time, clashes between the immigrant mentality of living and the American mentality of living. In Unaccustomed Earth, Lahiri demonstrates to the reader the important influence of environment, specifically culture and how it impacts parental teachings, on the personality and development of an individuals’ identity, and how the actions and development of characters can affect one’s family and friends; the impact of environment and culture is shown especially by the characters and stories “Hell-Heaven” and “Hema and Kaushik”.

The story “Pumpkins” was first published in the journal “Western Humanities Review”. This journal accepts online submissions only, and charge a small submission fee. Flash fictions must be at 1,000 words or less, but authors can submit multiple submissions, as

Cultural identity is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a person’s self-conception and self-perception and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has it's own distinct culture, my culture identity is being Mexican American.

Why do I care about this? Is this morally and culturally ethical? Ignorance is bliss, no? Of course, considering the environmental, social inequalities, and health aspects, my interests seem to be clearly justified … no? Philosophical inquiry will allow me to ask these questions and meticulously ponder their meaning. Specifically, however, LFP will allow me to incorporate and further understand my own “lived experience” regarding environmentalism and being Latina. In other words, LPF gives me an academic voice to articulate and expand on my experience. For example, [an experience] already during this winter break, my father reflected upon his views when I mentioned what I was planning on

Joan Didion 's article Notes From A Native Daughter and Ernesto Galarza 's piece Barrio Boy both talk a lot about how life was like in Sacramento while they were growing up. In Ernesto Galarza 's article, he writes about living in lower Sacramento and Didion 's essay, talks about life in a different area of Sacramento, California. Ernesto Galarza 's Sacramento is filled with a lot of Mexican and other Latin American people living in a particular area of the city. Barrio Boy 's Sacramento took place in around the 1910s-1920s which was the early 20th century. Joan Didion 's Sacramento was at a later time which was 1940s-1950s and was also a time when World War II took place. Since these stories both take place in Sacramento, California, they

The Department of the Army (2014) defines culture as a “Web of meaning shared by members of a particular society or group within a society” (p. 3-1). In a previous version of Field Manual (FM) 3-24 the Department of the Army (2006) defines culture as “A system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another” (p. 3-6). Culture can mean many different things to many different people and societies. To put one definition on it will not work. Over the next couple of pages an attempt will be made to explain culture further as well as consider the culture of Mexico by looking at the Mexican physical geography, military conflict history and their impact on the

Traditions and old teachings are essential to Native American culture; however growing up in the modern west creates a distance and ignorance about one’s identity. In the beginning, the narrator is in the hospital while as his father lies on his death bed, when he than encounters fellow Native Americans. One of these men talks about an elderly Indian Scholar who paradoxically discussed identity, “She had taken nostalgia as her false idol-her thin blanket-and it was murdering her” (6). The nostalgia represents the old Native American ways. The woman can’t seem to let go of the past, which in turn creates confusion for the man to why she can’t let it go because she was lecturing “…separate indigenous literary identity which was ironic considering that she was speaking English in a room full of white professors”(6). The man’s ignorance with the elderly woman’s message creates a further cultural identity struggle. Once more in the hospital, the narrator talks to another Native American man who similarly feels a divide with his culture. “The Indian world is filled with charlatan, men and women who pretend…”

As mentioned, Spanish-language music allows the development of self-identity through culture. Moreno adds an interview she had with Jorge Andrés Herrera, an adjunct professor at California State University, Fullerton, who teaches Chicano Studies courses and is a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA, whom is studying the role music plays in shaping Latino identity with an emphasis on the U.S./México border. "When a Latino crosses the border, they automatically start to assimilate culturally and a big part of that assimilation comes in the form of musical tastes and musical preferences which also transform and assimilate to the dominant culture” (Moreno 5). Music helps shape Latino identity by empowering and helping those who have assimilated in the mainstream

Francine Prose's short fictional piece, "Pumpkins," was about a therapist who was having an epiphany, with how this sudden incident that has happened in town, affects him so greatly. The short piece also played with the significance of the pumpkin in an interesting way. One thing that I noticed in my first read of Prose’s short piece was that it has a very serious and heavy tone. For example, just within the first two lines, “There was a terrible accident. A truck full of Halloween pumpkins is speeding…”. As well as the beginning sentence of paragraph two. The second thing that I had noticed in Prose’s piece was that the story was being told through the therapist perspective. Although it took me several reads to catch this, each time I read

Many of the old people in the village had claimed they had been marked by the witch when they were little while sleeping in their very own homes including Bryan’s Grandma Mrs. Ojeda. The family was enjoying their first chilly night under the stars that were clearly visible unlike how they were back home. It was a perfect time for Bryan and his nephew to ask their grandmother to tell them the story of the witch on the corner of Babylan St. that was just 4 houses away. Bryan finally broke the silence of the night by telling his grandma, “ Grandma can you tell us the story of the witch on the corner of the street?” Bryans Grandma had agreed but told us not to tell their parents she had told them the story. She said,” The rumors began when a family had moved into the house a week before Christmas. Time had passed and the day was Christmas Eve and as traditions went, they would blow fireworks starting at midnight and burn the dummies they had made of hay and fireworks with old clothes they saved all year. The family did not want to do fireworks that night so they stayed inside the house for

In the novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part time Indian”, author Sherman Alexie shares a compelling story representing racial issues among communities and families in cultural areas today, and a boy’s journey to find who he truly is, while being torn between two cultures. In this novel the main character, young Junior finds himself truly understanding that he is more than just an indian. In order to know more about the plot behind the novel, author Alexie takes the reader into Junior’s perspective to bring the story to life and let the reader understand how racial issues along with family problems make a play into today’s society. The novel shows a countless number of situations Junior encounters that impact his life throughout the novel.

Have you ever been at Christmas dinner and you were so interested and intrigued by your grandmother 's story that you wish you could place yourself in her shoes right then and there? Well these two stories that I am going to analyze will do just that. I will prove that Silko’s Yellow Woman and Walker’s Everyday Use are inherently drawn to traditions of the past. First, I will show how identity is a common factor in both stories and plays such a large role in connecting the main characters and their past traditions. Second, I will illustrate how both stories are linked to symbolism, which will give proof to my claim that they are inherently drawn to their past traditions. Finally, I will show that the use of irony plays a part in

In the short story “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” by Jhumpa Lahiri, Lilia, her parents, and Mr. Pirzada react differently to Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 because of the different cultures in which they grew up. Lilia is a ten-year-old girl growing up in Boston, Massachusetts. The civil war affects her vicariously when she sees her parents and Mr. Pirzada upset. Lilia’s parents are from India and moved to Boston before Lilia was born. They show concern when watching the news of their homeland in peril. Mr. Pirzada is from Pakistan and moves to Boston for one year on a research grant while his wife and seven daughters still live in East Pakistan. The civil war affects him the most because it is his personal property and his direct loved ones that are in the midst of it all.

Similarly, in the piece "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine," a young girl observes and appreciates from a far a family friend who recently arrived from India. It is evident that in a short period of time he has assimilated to the everyday American lifestyle. He has an established career as a professor and is invited to dinner parties on a regular basis by the Lilia's family. Yet this supposed success through assimilation is not where Mr, Pirzada finds satisfaction. Although his family is suffering in Dacca after a war time crisis, Pirzada is still able to find some sort of satisfaction at Lilia's house as he participates in Indian influenced activities. He plays a round of carom with the family, and chews on fennel seeds, as he experiences moments of happiness among the thoughts of the death of his family back home.