Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror

In the essay “Growing up Asian in America” by Kesaya E. Noda, being who you are, or accepting yourself is portrayed through her own life story. “Being Japanese means being a danger to the country during the war and knowing how to use chopsticks. I wear this history on my face” (Noda 34). Living in America can be said to be great, from those who are already the average American, because they don’t deal with the everyday life of being racialized. They also don’t have the label of having another ethnicity besides being American. “Clean, quiet, motivated, and determined to match the American way; this is us, and that is the story of our time here” (Noda 35). Kesaya struggled to learn about herself and her history, due to the fact that she didn’t know much about her Japanese race. When finding out that her family had been apart of the Japanese camps, Kesaya found it easier to just go along with the American way instead of being herself because she was ashamed of herself. “I come from a people with long memory and a distinctive grace. We live our thanks. And we are Americans. Japanese- Americans” (Noda 36). Kesaya had then accepted herself as a Japanese- American because she was proud of all that her family, and all Japanese, went through. Being American isn’t just about living in America, or being a citizen, but about knowing that you belong because America is your home. Along with being American, if it officially says it on paper or not,

Richard Rodriguez article, “The Chinese in All of Us (1944)”, argues that many different cultures have contributed to making up the American culture. Rodriguez backs up this claim by sharing

Although one’s racial and ethnic identities are predetermined due to genetics, attachment to a particular culture is not a birthright; one has to accept and understand the community in order to fully identify with it. When Robert Chang writes “one is not born Asian American, one becomes one”, he means just that. In Chang’s opinion, having Asian blood and living on American soil is not sufficient to call oneself Asian American, but the connection to the community allows one claim to the title.

Takaki’s book, A Different Mirror, offers the multicultural history of the United States. This book provides the reader with the American experience of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Irish Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Jewish Americans. During this time, America demonstrated manifest destiny and the Master Narrative. They were led by the belief of “white purity,” which these ethnic groups threatened. America exhibited supremacy over all of these ethnic groups. Takaki’s work allows me to become aware of the history and the outcomes of manifest destiny and the Master Narrative.

American was dominated by the image of the melting pot that “melts up” all race differences and cultures to become on American culture. The ideas of multiculturalism started at the end of the nineteenth century and turned into the concept of cultural pluralism that defined the nation as a mixture of diverse ethnicities with different cultural backgrounds, all co-existing and contributing to the new nation.

In the poem “In Response to Executive Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers” , by Dwight Okita, a young Japanese-American girl gives us her point of view on being the race she is at the time. She expirienced recism, at it's finest, and endured it like a champ. In the short story "Merican's," by Sandra Cisneros, a young Mexican-American girl gives us her experience growing up in an American household with a Hispanic grandmother that detested Americans. Both works show that cultural heritage and physical appearances do not determine what it means to be American.

Kottak, Conrad Phillip and Kayhryn Kozaitis 2012 On Being Different, Diversity and Multiculturalism in the North American Mainstream, 4th edition, McGraw Hill Press, New York: Chapter 8. (textbook)

Cultures using hyphenated forms of “American,” such as Mexican-American, African-American, Asian-American, Native-American and many more is a step in the right direction for culture acceptance. With this positive move in the world, there could be a change in how cultures view themselves, leading to how others view them. The multicultural society has to take into account for this change because without their acceptance it would just be hate. Bharati Mukherjee in her essay “American Dreamer,” asserts, “WE MUST BE ALERT TO THE DANGERS OF AN ‘US’ vs. ‘THEM’ MENTALITY.” Although Mukherjee has a great point here, I have to disagree. I don’t feel that we have to be aware of the ‘US’ versus ‘THEM’ mentality with the change in cultural acceptance.

In this essay, I attempted to lay bare the issues of being an Asian-American and being labeled as an ethnic “other” in modern America. This label of “other” causes them to become marginalized and lose their sense of identity, belonging neither to Western culture nor Eastern culture. In order help stop this loss of identity in Asian-Americans, we must tear down the social construct of the “other” and integrate the different cultures into the melting pot of popular culture. Once we have stopped alienating different cultures, we can then have a moral society that upholds diversity and identity.

When learning information about important facts, dates, and the influential people who made up U.S. history, I do not remember learning much of anything regarding the Irish, Chinese, or Japanese. Well, except for Pearl Harbor and the U.S. retaliating against Japan by dropping atomic bombs. I definitely learned that people from around the world immigrated by boat across vast amounts of ocean for a chance to thrive in the land of freedom called America. I learned that millions of people entered through Ellis Island in the late nineteenth century, looking upon the Statue of Liberty, in hopes of finding their right to life, liberty, and happiness. I learned that the majority of these people were stricken of their identities and provided new American names that were easier to pronounce. I did not however, learn about the great discrimination and hardship that these people suffered at the hands of white Americans. The major theme presented is labor discrimination, unequal and unfair pay, long hours, and harsh working and living environments in regards to the Mexican Americans, Chinese, and Japanese. Takaki (2008) paints a vivid picture of discrimination and suffering of the people known as the “others” living and working in the multicultural “melting pot” United States, in his book A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America.

Defining what really is to be an American does not sound as easy as it seem. It will always be complex process. As immigration continues to fuel the growth of the population of our nation, racial and ethnic gap increase and evolve along with it. Racial and ethnic identities become more and more convoluted and difficult to understand. Race and ethnicity continue to intermingle and push a cultural shift in the US– a shift that plays a significant role in redefining America in a day-to-day basis.

| Whites here in the United States are classified as individuals that have origins with the Middle East, Europeans, and North Africa (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001).

Frank Chin has been the most vocal critic of Kingston's who accused her "of reinforcing white fantasies about Chinese Americans" (Chin, 1991) and claimed that writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang who won approval of the American white readers deliberately distorted the image of Chinese American to reinforce stereotypes and cater to the fantasies of American readers about a traditionalist Chinese culture. (Frank Chin, 1991, pp. 3-29)

Lawrence W. Levine approaches the issue of ethnic relations in a slightly different light in his book, “The Opening of the American Mind”. He focuses on the two central components of the entire matter: One-way Assimilation (the melting pot ideology) and Cultural Pluralism, given that the two other models (Ethnic

Cultural diversity, or multiculturalism, is based on the idea that cultural identities should not be discarded or ignored, but rather maintained and valued. The foundation of this belief is that every culture and race has made a substantial contribution to American history. However, many people remain opposed to the idea of multiculturalism, or cultural diversity awareness, while others often support it and yet have no clear idea of how it should be taught. The diversity of the United States is truly astounding, as many different ethnic and racial groups have contributed to the social,