Amy Tan "Fish Cheeks"

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Have you ever wanted to be someone you’re not? If so, did you realize that in the end, it’s best to be the individual you already are? Well, in Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” and Sherman Alexie’s “Indian Education,” they yearn to be American. Not a Chinese American or a Native American but American as in Caucasian. Though Tan’s and Alexie’s different culture are what set them apart from the American culture, they still seek to become part of that culture; however, they come to learn that in the end, you can’t be someone you’re not. As Chinese people, we are taught to date within our race because it’s our way of life and not get plastic surgery because God made us who we are an we should keep it that way. But when you’re Chinese American living in American and the American culture is what’s in front of you from the time you get to school until the time you get back from school and watch American television, you start to feel the American culture overshadowing your everyday thinking of who you really are. Are you Chinese on the inside and Chinese on the outside or are you Chinese inside and American outside? This is the problem young Amy Tan faces as she grows up in Oakland, CA. A city populated with Caucasians, fourteen-year old Tan faces a dilemma when she falls for the minister’s son who is Caucasian. Tan realizes that this handsome boy is the person she’s looking for and that maybe he’ll be attracted to her if she were to have a slim nose just like the Caucasian girls, considering the fact that Tan had a not so slim nose. “I prayed for this blond-haired, Robert, and a slim new American nose” (92). Tan’s reason to like a Caucasian boy and change her nose is because of what the American culture has done to her mentally. Once a young minority in America starts to think like an American instead of a Chinese American, he or she forgets who they are ethnically as an individual
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