Blog Post 4 topic 4

Maxine Hong Kingston portrayed the immigrant experience well in The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, because she captured the social experiences immigrants went through in the U.S. As a first-generation person living in the United States I witnessed the kinds of things Kingston described, for instance feeling embarrassed about the customs of your parents. I too have felt as if I cannot show my Salvadoran heritage because people would judge me or think I was crazy. I did not feel comfortable showing my culture and felt the need to assimilate to the “American” way. Being a first-generation person living here is not like coming to a different country to live in. My mother immigrated here and much like the narrator was very silent in school and only talked to people that would come up to here. She struggled to learn English but managed to learn by working hard. My mother would practice extra hard to be able to memorize and recite a song with the rest of her class, just as the narrator “My sister and I had memorized the lesson perfectly. We said it to each other at home, one chanting, one listening.”

Kingston mentions how American language is too soft and which can make other languages seem rowdy. The Salvadoran accent is loud compared to the American accent or language, which makes us seem obnoxiously loud, which creates a stigma that Salvadorans are noisy. This stigma creates issues because then it is assumed that Salvadorans are loud and all of them are like that, however that is just the way the accent is. Therefore, some feel self-conscious about their volume and feel as if they must speak lower, just like Kingston said, “We American-Chinese girls had to whisper to make ourselves American -feminine.” This here brings up the issue about immigrants or the first-generation people to feel as if they need to assimilate and feel the pressures of it. One feels the need to give up their culture because “Americans” expect everyone to be the same and not be different.

The narrator torturing the other little girl can be depicted as the American people trying to force an immigrant or different race to assimilate to their ways and do what they want. Growing up I have been taught in school that the way to get ahead is to adopt the American way because that is what will get you ahead. This idea put into people’s head creates an inner issue. One does not know whether they should give up their culture to get ahead. The narrator wanted the little girl to speak up because she said if she wouldn’t she would not make it in life, that is the way Americans make other races feel. There is a pressure to leave aside what you grew up with and assimilate with what is “right.” It is a constant battle to be able to be your true self and not be judged by it.

If I was the author I would write exactly about this because it is not easy growing up in a county where it is expected of you to know the language, assimilate the culture and be “American.” Kingston’s story shows in a childlike way what immigrants or first generations people go through living here and the challenges faced. Kingston writes in a way that demonstrates how childish it is to treat others as aliens and expect so much from them. People should be allowed to be what they want and not see them as any less, anyone can make it if they really want too.