Opposing Views On Personal Transformation, By Mukherjee

When you’re walking down the street and see a group of tattooed men of color and your first instinct is to cross the street is this due to internalized racism or does past experiences validate your prejudice? Or when you sit with a group of people all speaking a common language other than your own, is your discomfort and insecurity rationalized? The film Crash explores the lives of different socio-economic groups and their experiences dealing with prejudice and stereotypes or being on the other end of it. The concept of various “American Identities” are explored within the film. We see the white woman who fears people of color. The African American male who’s so anti-white he becomes the stereotypes he’s supposedly against. The Latino male who based on appearance is profiled and many more characters. All these individuals created these identities for themselves to exist in America. In Bharati Mukherjee’s “Two Ways to Belong in America” we see this theme being shared when Mukherjee and her sister Mira arrive in America and must find their own way to exist in this new country.

People from different cultures and areas all have different needs and perspectives, which is why we perceive experiences dissimilarly. However, different perspectives are important to consider because one can learn new insights, communicate better, and see the bigger picture when doing so. In the article titled “The Indians of the Six Nations to William and Mary College”, an American college sent a letter to a group of Indians offering to provide them with a “proper education” that was based solely off academics. The Indians responded, declining because their idea of education differed, being that it includes being able to survive in the wilderness and kill a meal. These two groups learned through letters that they had separate ideas and values

Is it better to settle with what you already have and know or branch out and strive for comfort elsewhere? This is the ongoing debate between sisters, Dee (Wangero) and Maggie in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and sisters Bharati and Mira in Bharati Mukherjee’s “Two Ways to Belong in America”. In “Everyday Use” Maggie is a soft spoken homebody who has never found interest in straying from her mother while Dee on the other hand has moved on in life and uses her past as an image to prove how far she has made it in life, she even changed her birth name to cut all ties with her past. In “Two Ways to Belong in America” Bharati and Mira are Indian immigrants who both came to America with intentions of keeping their Indian heritage, but over time Bharati faded from her culture while Mira kept true. Although Maggie and Mira decided to stick to their roots, Dee and Bharati chose to immerse themselves in a new culture.

Everyone’s lived experience is not ever the same because no two people are the same. Everyone lives in different places and with different people. My lived experience is different from someone that grew up in a big city because where I grew up everyone knows everyone. People who grew up in the city deal more with different cultures and races because there are a variety of people living there. Where I live there isn’t much of a variety of different people here. It’s the same families who have lived here for years, many people do not move away from here because all of their family is here.

One may say transformation is inescapable, that everyone is bound to change. Change will happen when one is exposed to a different environments and after a series of events. Jews in the Holocaust were prime examples of change occurring. They were put through harsh environments and received beatings daily forcing them to change and adapt to their new environment. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, was a Jew taken from his home and thrown into a concentration camp never to see his own mother or sisters again. Change has left Eliezer distant from his childhood-self. Eliezer has become distant from God, cold-hearted, and fearful from his optimistic and reassuring childhood.

She explains her thesis by stating “Others who write stories of migration often talk of arrival at a new place as a loss of communal memory and the erosion of an original culture. I want to talk of arrival as a gain,” (360). The key points of the text include Mukherjee describing her transition between Calcutta and the United States, and what it means to be and American and how culture influences that aspect. The information in the text is significant; the people of America are a part of a melting pot, sometimes it is hard for them to find the distinction between American culture and their own. The information in Mukherjee’s story is clear and specific, unbiased, and is relevant to the purpose of the story. I believe Mukherjee has achieved her purpose of informing her audience about cultural differences; she presents certain strengths and weaknesses within the text.

“There are events in life, which can change yourself or your ideas”. For me, the most primary change happens when I moved from Ethiopia to the USA. Why? My mom first answer was “For the better of your education and job opportunity” To tell the truth I didn’t want to the US I was going to leave my family and culture grew up in. Moving to America has made me a better person. Two factors that change was that the opportunities given here are extraordinary. Also realizing the difficulties my parents were going through.

With the pass of years, I grew up knowing persons with a different cultural background. I got used to the physical and cultural differences, and the fact that there was always one thing in common.

The changing environments throughout the ages have caused the movement of thousands of families out of their homelands. Whether forced to make such decisions or doing so by their own desires, all immigrants have had to survive the physical and psychological challenges encountered along the way. To speak about the experiences of all these different people using the same ideas and examples would be quite inaccurate. They all, however, had to live through similar situations and deal with similar problems. Many of them succeeded and found the better future they were looking for. Many others found only hardship and experienced the destruction of their hopes and dreams. All of them were transformed.

Living with a different culture to our roots can lead to changes in our lives. Migrating to

Accepting the differences of others by expanding your own level of understanding begins with the awareness that your own culture

In today 's society, “people are closed minded,” and do not take the opportunity getting to know the other person because of stereotyping and racism. Even though we all have different opinions toward other cultures, norms, beliefs and values we should all respect each other differences. We should consider learning from one another and not judge a person based on their race, ethnicity, gender and religion. As a society, it is very important; we educated ourselves in other cultures, even though we all have different values and beliefs.

Transformation in the world happens when people are healed and start investing in other people- Michael W. Smith. Change plays a key role in one’s life. Change is what makes one’s life different from usual; change is needed in everyone’s life in order to maintain the fluency of life. The character Gregor Samsa’s in the book “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka symbolizes change, in which he gets transformed into a large insect. Change literally means to make or do something in a different manner to get a new result.

Individuals are products of their life experiences, with the ability to create and modify behavior; the ultimate goal of alteration of a behavior is improving some aspect of your life through analysis, and implementation of sequential procedures. For this project, I have chose to modify an increase in my daily water consumption, with the intention to enhance overall health and wellness. Water is an essential element for the survival of the human body. At least 20% of water necessary each day is consumed through the foods you eat, with direct consumption of water the most effective and beneficial method of rehydration. Each day, water is lost through the process of urination, respiration and perspiration, and in order for these bodily functions to occur water must be continually replaced through our daily diet. When water is not consumed individuals are at risk of dehydration, which can negatively impact the human body. These symptoms include thirst, headaches, dry-skin, fatigue, join and muscle pain. As a full-time university student, working part-time with social commitments throughout the day it is often difficult to intentionally reflect on how much water I have consumed, with in some instances not having access to a water bottle at all times. Research suggests, that the transtheoretical model of change, also known as the stages of change model, will be a good model for changing this behavior. The transtheoretical model is an integrative and comprehensive model of

our journey came upon us. The sun had just climbed over the first huge hill and its brilliant