What Makes A Melting Pot?

“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, is a story of a black family composed of a mother and her two daughters: Maggie and Dee. Walker does an excellent job illustrating her characters. There are all types of characters in this short story from round to static. Dee is a flat character, yet Walker uses Dee’s character to warn people of what might happen if they do not live properly. Walker describes Dee’s character as arrogant and selfish, and through Dee’s character one is allowed to perceive the wicked effect of an egotistical world.

Alice Walker is a well-known African- American writer known for published fiction, poetry, and biography. She received a number of awards for many of her publications. One of Walker's best short stories titled "Everyday Use," tells the story of a mother and her two daughters' conflicting ideas about their heritage. The mother narrates the story of the visit by her daughter, Dee. She is an educated woman who now lives in the city, visiting from college. She starts a conflict with the other daughter, Maggie over the possession of the heirloom quilts. Maggie still lives the lifestyle of her ancestors; she deserves the right of the quilts. This story explores heritage by using symbolism of the daughters' actions, family items, and tradition.

The short story “Everyday Use” was written by Alice Walker and published in 1973. The story is told in first-person by “Mama,” an African-American woman residing in Georgia. Mama lives in a small but comfortable house with her physically scarred younger daughter, Maggie. Mama is preparing for the visit back home of her eldest daughter, Dee. Dee is educated and driven; however, we come to learn that most of her accomplishments come at the cost of her mother and her sister Maggie. Mama’s relationship with Dee is strained, and this creates conflict later in the story. “Everyday Use” depicts the complications between a mother and daughter’s relationship. The story examines the feelings a mother has when she believes she is not needed anymore or respected. Mama’s feelings towards both daughters are illustrated through two of Mama’s character traits, her low-self-esteem and lack of worldliness. However, because Mama has such a strong character and understanding of her family, she undergoes a significant change in her life, which then makes her into a dynamic character.

Meet Rachel, a sophomore studying at Howard University who is also mixed with both black and white. Rachel transferred to the Historically Black University from a Predominantly White Institution because she felt as though she was not “white enough” and Howard would better suit her. Unfortunately upon her arrival, Rachel could not help but feel as though she was not “black enough” to attend Howard University. Rachel’s feeling of not belonging are not isolated, they are shared by millions of biracial Americans who, at one time or another, felt as though they did not belong to either culture. These feelings have been brought on, over time, by the way, America, although believed to be a “melting pot” of cultures, often wants people to categorize themselves as one ethnicity and the pressure placed on Americans to solely identify with one race divides the country more than anything else. The only way to rectify this problem is for Americans to stop separating themselves into racial categories and come together to be classified as simply American.

Everyone is raised within a culture with a set of customs and morals handed down by those generations before them. Most individual’s view and experience identity in different ways. During history, different ethnic groups have struggled with finding their place within society. In the mid-nineteen hundreds, African Americans faced a great deal of political and social discrimination based on the tone of their skin. After the Civil Rights Movement, many African Americans no longer wanted to be identified by their African American lifestyle, so they began to practice African culture by taking on African hairdos, African-influenced clothing, and adopting African names. By turning away from their roots, many African Americans embraced a

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” (Dubois)

Double Consciousness refers to a concept first explored by WEB Du Bois. This describes the African American man and his identity having to be split or divided. In other words it “describes the individual sensation of feeling as though your identity is divided into several parts, making it difficult or impossible to have one unified identity” (WEB Du Bois). Moreover, Du Bois also expresses that Black Americans have lived in a society that has made them feel inferior, it can become extremely difficult for them to bind their black identify with their American identity. This can in turn, cause blacks to look at their

Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” serves as a cautionary tale showing that no matter how one chooses to identify themselves they can never escape their heritage. The story, first published in 1973, was a time shortly after the tumultuous 1960’s and civil rights movement. It was during this period that many persons of African descent were grappling with what it meant to be black and living in America. Ms. Walker introduces us to a mother “Mama” and her two daughters Dee and Maggie who live in the rural south. The interaction between them is an indication of the choices many were making in reference to the new found freedoms of this time. This story is played out through the life of Mama’s oldest daughter Dee, who has spent her whole life trying

The United States has Changed from a Melting Pot to a Vast Culture with Varying Racial Backgrounds

In the “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker tells a story about a mother and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. She sees the conflicts between her two daughters’ perspective of African tradition and heritage. Maggie and Dee are totally different characters with total opposite view of their cultures. Maggie lives with her mother in a simple life; she learns everything from her mother even along with her family’s heritage. In contrast, Dee feels ashamed of her heritage, because she changes her lifestyle and gets educated by living in school. She thinks her mother lives in an out-of-style life. To the mother, she believes her heritage should not be forgotten, it should be use every day like the quilts instead of hanging on the wall for decoration, so

One of the most important aspects about Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is the presence of the African American heritage. Before reading “Everyday Use”, the knowledge of the term Recovery literature is important. Recovery literature is a time that writers used their stories to represent the African American heritage, recalling aspects of slavery and the tight-knit communities of the rural south. Once realizing this, we further understand the true meaning behind “Everyday Use”. “Everyday Use” is about the Johnson family and most importantly Dee or Wangero as she is later called. We find that Dee know wants to represent her African heritage, but it truly is not her true heritage she is representing. She likes the idea of heritage and through her actions, we see that she has no means of continuing the common practices. In this story, the conflict of the butter churn, dasher, and quilts come into play about the Johnson

It is popularly believed that America is the biggest and most famous melting pot in the world. American history began with waves of immigrants bringing their own traditions, and culture to a new country. America is not the only country that is known as a melting pot, other countries like Russia are also practicing the melting pot; however, America is the only place that has such a diverse population and manages to make it work. Social media around the world, especially public relations of the American government has been working hard for years to make a uniform state that works equally for everybody, without taking in to consideration who they are or where they came from. However, since the beginning of that theory, we have seen a lot of prejudice between social, religious, and national aspects around the world. Let’s us consider whether or not the melting pot truly works in both countries or if it is just a myth?

Alice Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use,” reflects the intimate struggle within a poor African American family as they run up against monumental issues of history, heritage, and family values.

In today 's world, people are valued by the color of their skin and are assembled based on the amount of money one posses in their savings account. But in America today a very generalized group of Americans are being hunted everyday with inequality in workforce,American society, judicial system,education and etc. Racial Minorities are encountered in a very poorly manner, arguably minorities blame “white supremacy, white privilege” being the reason why a chain of black lives have been lost due to “police brutality” . People in the United states are labeled by the exterior and often forgiveful in the reality of people being the same in the interior. Despite the rough patches America has faced, America will never be united if we don 't leave the bigoted mindset and the segregation we do within our races. Many may argue that the famous quote “Make America great again “ shoved in our throats by our political figures today is inaccurate due to our malicious history.

The "melting pot" of America is a concept of social and racial acceptance, where individuals from across the globe can be transparently acknowledged, without being judged by their ethnicity or race. A thought doesn't specifically reflect reality all the time, as the melting pot has never been broadly acknowledged in America at any point in our nation's history. With the pandemic of violence growing and tensions rising between races, with groups like Black Lives Matter, and Antifa, contrasts between racial groups run widespread with hate against one another for the color of their skin. However, Texas State University student Rudy Martinez, wrote an article in the university’s newspaper about how to end these tensions. Martinez affirms that all these racial tensions come from a social construct made by white people called, “whiteness”, which assimilates and separates all races from whites. Throughout the article, he explains that the separation caused by “whiteness” kept all other races down, while whites remained oblivious to the advantages their skin brings them. But despite having an interesting concept, there are many weaknesses in Martinez’s argument because he constantly contradicts himself. He tells readers that we should hate the concept of “whiteness” instead, and not white people just because they were born, but instead contradicts this with his main headline being, “Your DNA is an abomination” (Martinez), which counters his own argument because he hates on white