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We Don T Sleep Around Like White Girl's Do Summary

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Authors in “We Don’t Sleep around Like White Girl’s Do” are looking at the relationship between Filipino immigrant parents and their daughters. It shows how gender socialization occurs. The author in this research uses epigraphs, or statements, by a Filipina immigrant mother and her second-generation Filipina daughter, stating things like “we don’t date like white girls date” and “I don’t like them to grow up that way, like the American girls.” These suggest that the Filipina daughter is taught to believe that White women are sexually unethical. It shows that their required “morality” and the sexuality of women, are crucial to the shaping of social differences. Furthermore, it claims that gender is a key to immigrant identity, and a way for immigrants to claim cultural authority over the dominant Americans. …show more content…

Espiritu’s interviews with almost one hundred Filipino Americans searches how gender factors into minority understandings of whiteness and their own personal, cultural identity. Filipino immigrant families stress cultural superiority over white Americans by declaring that their daughters have higher moral standards. They believe they have greater values when it comes to family commitment and sexuality. Also, Filipinos felt their culture was superior to white American culture because their lives revolved around their close-knit families while white families were seen as detached or individualistic. The responsibility for maintaining family ties and cultural traditions was put on Filipino women, which usually falls on women of all cultures. Carrying out responsibility reinforces patriarchy among Filipinos. Nearly all cultures blend” proper” femininity with sexual

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