Racism In Chinaman, Laundryman By Hsi-Tseng Tsiang

Could you take a guess and tell from what culture a person is from by just listening to their voice? Could you also tell by looking to their appearance; The way they dress, the color of their skin, facial features? What about the way they carry their selves? Just like “The Chinese in All of Us” by Richard Rodriguez where he explains that he feels connected to all the cultures around America, with its “culture, a sound, an accent, a walk.” (Rodriguez 730). It does not mean and require that you must look a certain way to belong to a certain culture.

Liu opens his essay by cataloging ways that he could be considered “white” in order to inform the reader about the similarities the author shares with white people, even though he is not white. The purpose of the list is to convey the message that Liu shares similarities with white people, and introduce the audience into his personal story about his integration into the white culture of America. The list is not specifically meant to be humorous, yet it has that effect, due to the generalizations and stereotypes that Liu states, like “I wear khaki Dockers” or “I vacation in charming bed-and-breakfasts” (1). Liu may have included these exaggerated stereotypes of white Americans for a humorous effect in order to engage the

The speaker in Li-Young Lee’s poem “Persimmons” has been clearly raised in a bi-lingual, bi-cultural atmosphere. His experiences, although not entirely positive, have helped him grow into the man he is today. By using sensory imagery and “precise” diction along with the informal stanza structure, the speaker shows the reader that, despite his bi-cultural past, he now has realized, thanks to his experiences, that some of the most important things are not “visible” and that he is indeed proud of his ethnicity.

Is it racism or economics which hinders many African American communities from progressing economically in the 21st Century? This research proposal will address this question by examining the social and psychological impact caused by racism and the economic impact it’s had on the African American community. This proposal will further investigate whether the emotional scars of slavery continue to hamper African American progress or if racism is actually the cause.

Stories and stereotypes make many people want to change themselves negatively and assimilate just to fit in with society. As time passes, society’s stereotypes for how people of each race should be, which race is more dominant than others, and which race you should be, all play a role in impacting someone’s self-esteem and their insecurities. This is portrayed through Jin Wang, a main character in Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese” when Jin Wang thinks his crush, Amelia, he instantly becomes happy. But then he thinks about Greg and Amelia together and gets mad. He finally zooms into Greg’s blond hair. The next day he goes to school with the same hairstyle. The hair symbolizes Greg’s all American identity because the stereotypical American is portrayed with blond hair and blue eyes. To Jin Wang, this hair symbolizes what he wants to be, so he changed his hair to an “American” hairstyle to get Amelia to like him. Due to stereotypes about how Americans are suppose to look like, Jin Wang feels insecure about himself and wants to change his identity and himself as well to assimilate into American culture and stereotypes. These stereotypes and the Anti-Asian stereotypes impact Jin Wang greatly and make him hate himself as well as his background and where he came from because he believes that in order to be AMerica, you have to be white. Another way that this is portrayed is from a personal experience I had as a kid. Growing up as an Asian kid in America, I didn’t really know

Sui Sin Far’s short story, “In the Land of the Free” touches on the reality of being a Chinese immigrant in late-19th century America. The story revolves around a Chinese couple. The husband is ready for his wife, Lae Choo, to arrive from China with their new son, later named Kim. However, due to policies on immigration, the American government was forced to take possession of the child due to a lack of paperwork. However, Far’s short-story has a deeper meaning than just focusing on unfair immigration policies. She takes advantage of the story’s ending to symbolize a rejection of immigrant culture, most especially Chinese immigrant culture, by taking advantage of Kim’s change in behaviors, appearance, and dialect.

The tale “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luch Wang depicts the story of three characters, Monkey, Jin, and Danny. They all have the problem of fitting into their new environments. Jin Wang has to deal with Asian stereotypes. Danny has to deal with embarrassment of his cousin. Lastly, Monkey has to deal with the fact that there is no position for him in the heavenly ranks. However, over time, these characters have to come together to fit in. Yet the question remains: what exactly about fitting in is the problem? Although Jin Wang takes the form of Danny to reject his Chinese roots, the embarrassment of Chin-Knee shows he cannot hide behind a false American identity, thereby delineating that race is the source of his problem.

‘The Chinese in All of Us’ is an essay written by Richard Rodriguez. Rodriguez is a first generation American, who’s a son of a working class Mexican immigrant. Author of a thin book called Hunger of Memory, that summarized the memories of how he became Americanized, Rodriguez shares how he believes we all are blending and being fluid with individualism but unifying as Americans.

The third stanza transitions into Lee discussing an intimate moment that he is sharing with a white girl named Donna. This scene seems like the turning point in which Lee recognizes the fading aspects of his Chinese heritage. The fact that Lee makes it evident that the girl he is sleeping with is white really highlights how he is now fully immersed in American Culture. He also talks about trying to teach Donna different words in Chinese, but there are some words that he has forgotten. Lee forgetting these words emphasizes a point in his life where he might have identified more with his American Culture; he does not dwell on the fact that he cannot remember these words and gets right back into telling her how beautiful she is in English. This is an instance where Lee’s cultural identity might have lied been more in line with American values rather than his Chinese values.

“One dancer heard Ebens say explicitly ’It’s because of you motherfu*kers that we’re out of work’” was the accusation he made. Vincent was a young man who was about to get married in a few weeks before he was murdered. His father was a Chinese immigrant who worked hard and owned laundry mats, and later served in the military for his citizenship and was later able to bring his wife and adopted son, Vincent, to the free land (Yung). Hung Liu worked hard with extensive research to find that her fellow Chinese people who had been living in America before her had owned many laundry mats and were very involved in the laundry business. When asked by a college in South Carolina to create a piece for them, she designed clothing and had her family create them and this piece later turned into a memorial for the laundry businesses in the South (Riechart).

In these lines from Derek Walcott’s “A Far Cry from Africa,” the speaker emphasizes the natural human tendencies to “inflict pain.” Similarly, in his poem, “Sympathy,” Paul Dunbar explores pain from the point of view of a bird being trapped in a cage. It flaps its wings and tries to escape but it cannot. The bird symbolizes an African American bound by slavery and unable to escape. On the other hand, in Claude McKay’s poem “The Harlem Dancer,” the dancer feels as if

He claims himself as a businessman, not a poet. “I am just a businessman, not a poet. It is the poet who is supposed to see things so clearly to remember.” (29) The businessman does not meticulous as the poet but Unlike poetry, being businessman has to be straightforward and supposes to see a whole picture not as details-orient as poetry does. He states that he feels uncomfortable with Mr. Hương, Mr. Chinh’s cousin, because Mr. Hương expresses extreme Vietnamese cultures. “Huong struck me as being of this tradition — as surely his father must, too, for this is how an otherwise practical people learns an attitude such as this.” (33-34). He feels uncomfortable when Mr. Hương expresses the custom Vietnamese manners and does not say indirectly truth when Khánh’s ask what happens with Mr.

Throughout many of the reading this semester, we have encounter serious racism. In some cases the individual being a target of racism in turn exhibits acts of racism themselves. The anger that these character feels can cause them to label all individuals in a group as racist, which isn't fair at all. Some of the characters lose themselves due to racism. They try to fit to the ways of another culture that is more excepted than theirs.

In The Man Awakened from Dreams, Henrietta Harrison describes the life of Liu Dapeng through his diary entries. Highlighting one man’s story allowed the author “to focus on the details of everyday life” in order to “see how social structures and ideologies interacted in practice” (7). Liu lived from 1857 to 1942 and began his diary in 1891, so information about Liu’s childhood and education is dependent on his memories from that time. Harrison depicts Liu as a conservative scholar and argues that his education and Confucian beliefs provided him opportunities even among the modernization changes of China. Harrison also explores the negative impact of modernization on rural areas by recounting the economic and

Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds” describes a Chinese immigrant family who hope of finding success and an overall betterment of life in America. After losing everything in China, Jing-mei’s mother, Mrs. Woo, tries as a minority house maid in the 1960s to provide all the opportunities she can for her last daughter. This short story revolves around the interactions between the Jing-mei, who desires a ordinary life, and Mrs. Woo, who seeks only the best from her daughter. The values of these two characters are in constant conflict of which creates a lasting segregation between parent and child. Through Mrs. Woo’s death, Jing-mei questions her childhood upbringing and her mother’s true intentions that were masked by pure immigrant ambition.