4/26 Freshman year

Freshmen year has been a shocking and surprising experience in many ways, good and bad. The bad includes the workload of college and the competitiveness in perusing my aspirations of becoming a doctor. I was always the kid in high school to slack and sometimes sleep in class, but not I am forced to apply myself, which is in many ways rewarding. I have adapted to college and developed new study habits. The good includes how much fun I’ve been experiencing. Living amongst friends, I am able to have an enjoyable time, all the time.
The one aspect of college that I most benefit from is the diversity here at Tufts whether in regards to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or even the diversity of opinion and ideas. I am given the opportunity to absorb all this diversity and form new opinions by learning from dialogue and the life experiences of others. Never before had I have such a diverse group of friends. I am placed in situations where I am forced out of my comfort zone. After freshman year, my past prejudices and ideas have all changed. One change includes my ignorance in regards to homosexuality. I had been ignorant and often times used the word “gay” or “homo” as a synonym for stupid. However, now I see how ignorant and rude that was. Having gay friends has changed me for the better as I am able to understand and respect their lifestyle choices.

paragraph Essay 2 4/22

Adaptation to American society is a topic explored often by authors. They demonstrate the immigrant experience by having the characters endure prejudice and stereotypes and analyze their response to them. In American Son, a novel by Brian Ascalon Roley, and American Born Chinese, a comic written and illustrated by Gene Luen Yang, both authors explore the experience of two similar protagonists, Gabe and Jin Wang, and their similar journey in adapting to America’s unforgiving society. Both authors illustrate the character’s initial attempts to “fit in” then demonstrate how the characters adapt to the pressures of society by assuming false identities. The difference between the works is shown in the conclusions as Roley implements the tragedy of Gabe accepting his false identity, while Yang exhibits optimism as Jin Wang rejects his false identity.

Extra Credit Assignment VSC Show

The Vietnamese Student Council show was very interesting and insightful. It seems as if much of Vietnamese culture is influenced by Chinese culture. Although there was much Vietnamese culture, there were many guest appearances from the Chinese Student Association. This may have confused some of the audience.

The food was delicious and the show itself was entertaining. The food included various meats with fish sauce and other dips, cut up carrots drenched in vinegar, egg rolls, and various Vietnamese drinks. I personally did not enjoy these drinks. I drank coke and orange soda.

The show included fan dancing, dragon dancing, a video, a skit, a fashion show, and singing. I found the fashion show and singing particularly insightful because they revealed to me aspects of Vietnamese culture that I was not aware of. The Vietnamese dresses were beautiful and colorful. However, I was curious to know the attire of males in Vietnam. The singing was insightful because it was performed in the native tongue.

There was also a speaker who spoke about the underground hip hop movement in Asia. I spoke to him after the show, and we spoke about hip hop in Korea. He mentioned some hip hop artists that I actually listen to such as Drunken Tiger.

April 17 American Son analysis

The American Son, a novel by Brian Ascalon Roley, focuses on Gabe, a half white, half Filipino adolescent, who is caught in an identity crisis as he faces pressures from both Filipino and American cultural values. The novel is a bildungsromam, which is defined as “the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order.” The individual in this case is Gabe and the social order is the Filipino and American societies.

Throughout Part 1, Gabe is illustrated as shy and timid, and is afraid to speak out, enduring the relentless beatings and insults from his brother. Gabe is shameful of his Filipino heritage and rejects his identity. Gabe explains how he is embarrassed of his mother, who he describes to be “self-conscious about her English.” He states, “Still, I do not like having her pick me up from school. She is short and dark and wears funny-looking giant purple glasses that are trendy on other people’s mothers but which do no match her brown skin tone” (30).

After being beat up by his brother at the end of Part 1, Gabe decides to take his brother’s car and run away. In Part 2, he explores his identity of being white and Asian. At this point of the novel, Roley essentially integrates the protagonist’s “major conflict between self and society.” On page 84, the truck driver states, after demeaning various ethnic groups, “But it isn’t near as bad as San Pedro. Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotians,” he continues “All those mute Asians won’t even learn to speak English” (84). Afterwards, a discomfort comes over Gabe. Roley describes Gabe to be avoiding the rearview mirror in order to visually demonstrate Gabe’s shame of his own identity as an Asian. Gabe is also surprised at this point that the truck driver does not recognize his own Filipino heritage and verifies the fact that he may possibly “get by” or “pass” as a non-Asian. Throughout this experience with the truck driver, whom Gabe regards as a father-figure, he finally feels accepted and finds a place for himself.

After returning home in Part 3 and experiencing “clashes between the protagonist's needs and desires and the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order,” Gabe attempts to develop a new identity conforming to a misconstrued image of being American. He joins a gang and follows the path of his brother, a life of violence. On page 214, Gabe describes… “Ben laughed even though I was older. But now he is respectful, his head bowed.” Afterwards he states “I feel a rush not of anxiety but of confidence” (214). Gabe finally overcomes his shame and is no longer the introverted adolescent he was.

list of possible paper topics 4/3

1) Compare and contrast the identity crisis of the protagonist in American Born Chinese and Siddhartha.

2) Compare and contrast the use of personification in the comic American Born Chinese and the graphic comic, Maus by Art Spiegalman.

3) Compare and contrast the theme of prejudice in the nonfiction, We Are All Suspects Now, and the fiction novel, How to Kill a Mocking Bird.

4) Compare and contrast the comedic/light mood in American Born Chinese and The Importance of Being Earnest.

5) Compare and contrast the use of humor in American Born Chinese and The Oracles.

Analysis of pg.1-20 of American Born Chinese 3/29

First, on flower-fruit mountain, the monkey king is amongst his own kind. However, as he attempts to attend the dinner party with the Gods, he is set distinctly apart. Even though he has mastered the 4 perquisites to immortality, fist-like lightening, thunderous foot, heavenly senses, and cloud-as-steed, and is equally qualified to attend, he is excluded due to his differences. The guard at the dinner party states, “You may be a king- you may even be a deity, but you are still a monkey.” The author seems to be making an allusion to the experiences of many minorities. Often times, minorities, including Asian-Americans, feel estranged or excluded due to his or her differences. Like the monkey king, he or she may be equally as qualified but are restricted due to those differences. I feel a good example of this is the music industry. I feel for Asian-Americans there is not enough representation in the American music industry, almost to non-existence. While for pop, rock, country, and various other genres, the general image is whites, for hip hop and r and b the image is for blacks. This black-white paradigm leaves out Asians as they do not fit the music image. Even though these Asian musicians are equally qualified or equally talented, due to the preconceived image, they are excluded.

paragraph from paper 1

What does it mean to have a Korean American dual identity? A quixotic definition would define this as accepting both Korean and a new American culture. A more realistic definition for a majority of Korean Americans is a person with a Korean cultural identity estranged in a foreign country, America. Many institutions such as the Korean church and other organizations served its purpose for the illiterate first generation of Korean Americans, but the segregating aspect of those institutions continue to affect the second generation of Korean Americans who have fluency in English. This problem is further exacerbated by the promotion of segregation in schools through cultural clubs, which ironically is supposed to promote diversity, and social outings with just Koreans on their free time. The collective effect is the exclusive nature of Korean Americans and the segregation of the Korean community from the rest of America. A repercussion of the Korean American community’s segregation from American culture is the lack of representation in politics on both the local and national scale. In order to engage in politics, Korean Americans must submerge themselves into a larger community rather than isolating themselves. Otherwise, the community’s views will not be addressed and its voice will never be heard.