Her mother became a polygamist in China and therefore disgraced herself. She never knew her mother well except from the few times she saw her and the stories her grandma told of her. In this An-mei learns about sacrifice from her mother. This story is like the parable because her mother transforms herself into something totally different. The Red Candle is about a Chinese girl named Lindo whose parents chose a husband for her when she was only two years old.
However, her college experience is where she first interacts solely with the predominantly American culture. In order to pay for school and get good grades, Sara must ignore everything else, including her family, to work and study. Slowly and painfully, Sara learns to talk, dress and act like her American peers. She leaves college with her teaching degree and a thousand dollars, which she won in an essay contest. Feeling successful, Sara returns home to find her mother fatally ill. After her mother's death, her father remarries only to find his new wife, Mrs. Feinstein, is a gold-digger after his late wife's lodge money.
In the essay, "In a Land of Forks and Spoons," the author tells readers of her first-hand experience of being culturally different from the people around her. The writer uses vivid and detailed descriptions to help readers better envision her anecdote of being a kindergartener. By explaining that, "pointing at a person with my middle finger was considered inappropriate and rude," and, "that I had never once in my life ordered pizza over the phone," she compares the differences in the Chinese and American culture. She also states, "I sought after the clear blue eyes, the bouncy golden locks, and the pink frilly dresses," instead of possessing, "straight black hair, my slanted, dull brown eyes, and my summer outfit."
She spanks Sophie as she tries to discipline her, and by the end of the story when Natalie and John find out, they ask her to move out of the house and her contact with Sophie is forbidden. In Two Kinds, the narrator Jing-mei is a young first generation American with a Chinese background. Her mother has a very utopian and positive view of America. She wants what is best for her daughter. Jing-mei resists her mother’s desire to make her a musical prodigy.
Amy Tan explores the idea of variable language in her short essay Mother Tongue. Tan is the daughter of Chinese immigrants. She grows up watching her parents, especially her mother, struggle with learning the English language. While her mother does gain skill in speaking the English language, she never masters language in the sense that we expect of someone who lives in an English speaking country. As a child, Tan is embarrassed by her mother’s difficulty in language and eventually she sees growing up the child of an Asian immigrant home as the reason she struggled in school to excel in reading and writing.
This is the first time that Kingston explicitly tells which additions to the story are her own. Not only is she referencing the story at hand, but she is also alluding to her life. While her mother very much colored her childhood, Kingston will be dictating the direction of the rest of her life. Kingston tells the story of Ts’ai Yen, a poetess captured and made to live with barbarians. Towards the end of the tale, Kingston tells of a song Ts’ai Yen sings: “Her words seemed to be Chinese, but the barbarians understood their sadness and anger…her children did not laugh, but eventually sang along” (209).
It is evident that Tan’s mother is considered by the society as inferior because of her broken English. Even her daughter was first ashamed of her due to the fact that she cannot speak good English that is understood by many people in the society. However, the significance of “Mother Tongue” in our lives is the overriding theme in the article. From the beginning, Tan struggles with her two different worlds. Being born in China but living in America, she seems ashamed of her roots and that is why she is embarrassed when her mother speaks broken English (Tan 142-146).
Notes on Readings Chapter 1 31-62 Section: ____________________________ Page #: ____________________ Notes on Readings "Plight of the Little Emperors" by Taylor Clark There was a boy whose mom would come to class everyday so that she could monitor how he was doing with his studies. Parents would go to extremes to give their child the edge over everybody else. One test in China will decide what type of life you will have. If you do good on the test you can go to good schools and have a relatively easy life, if you do poorly on the teat then you will have to work hard for the rest of your life. All of the pressure on the young students has led to frustration, depression and unemployment because they are unwilling to take jobs that they feel
Even though it is within the same culture, the film shows how Chinese immigrants are forced to “adjust” and give up much of their identity in order to thrive in America. Imagine moving to a foreign country and raising children who don’t speak your language, understand your history, believe your beliefs, or share your values. The Joy Luck Club opens with a short story about a Chinese woman who desires to move to America, believing her future daughters will be treated more fairly there than they would be in Chinese society. “Nobody will look down on her,” she says, “because I will make her speak only perfect American English.” In America, she hopes, her daughter can leave behind the
Shirley Temple Wong is a young girl, a girl whom never loses her connection of her birth. When she had to move she missed her cousins, aunt, uncle and grandparents. Some how Shirley managed to tie together her love of her past life in China and the present life Shirley is now living in Brooklyn. Shirley had to go to school in Brooklyn; Shirley also tried to fir in with the other girls in her class room. Shirley was feeling very lonely, because Shirley thought she wasn’t going to have anyone to talk to.