Advanced Essay #2: Who am I?

 For this essay, my goal was to try to fully utilize the quotes into making my essay better. In other words, I want to use my quotes in a way to make my essay more understanding to my readers. One part in my essay that I am really proud of is the first paragraph because I tried something that I never done before. I contradicted my own argument, so that my thesis can be more clearly understood. I want to continue thinking of ways to make my writing more powerful and understanding to the writer. I think this time, I've been more proactive in asking my friends to check/edit my essay, and that helped me a lot.

“So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity; I am my language.” This quote was pulled out of, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, by Gloria Anzaldua. This is great story that revolves around culture because she passionately explain her culture and her people very specifically. With that, we can most definitely say that she is proud of her nationality and ethnicity. “There are more subtle ways that we internalize identification, especially in the forms of images and emotions. For me food and certain smells are tied to my identity, to my homeland. Woodsmoke curling up to an immense blue; woodsmoke perfuming my grandmother’s clothes, her skin.” When she is not at home, there is a lot of things that remind her of home like some of the examples provided above. This same type of home sickness goes for a lot of immigrants in the United States today. they are out here working hard to be able to provide for themselves and their family. Maybe once in every couple of years, they travel back to visit, but for the most part, it is the same hard working life for them. As interesting as her story may be, it is sad to say that not all of the immigrant’s experiences are like that. As a matter of fact, majority of the immigrants that came here to make a life, end up having the complete opposite experience. They often are too busy to celebrate their culture and perform their rituals and traditions. With that, it puts a negative impact towards the kids and their future of remembering their culture.

America has become a really diverse country consisting of many different cultures. One of the main reasons why is because of its capitalist society. Owning property and making business has become a easy way to make money to gain wealth for a lot of immigrants in America compared to the work force they were involved in back at their native location. As for many great systems and ideas created in this world, there is always a cause and effect.

I came here when I was 4 years old because of my parents looking for a better life. My father worked as a delivery man, delivering different packages of food and beverages to different companies that purchased them, so he is hardly ever home in the daytime, and he comes home late at night. My mother work with my grandpa in the restaurant, so I am just left with my sister. My parents are working extremely hard for money and sometimes forget about taking time off to celebrate some of the most important holidays in the Chinese culture. For example, Chinese New Year, Ching Ming Day, etc. For a lot of my childhood, I was very independent, and the only way I would learn is through school. As of today, I have been asked why I do not have an accent because it is common for Chinese or Asian natives to have an accent. A lot of times, I really do not know how to answer that question. For the most part, I think that it is because most of my time is spent on critically learning English. I do not really have religion or rituals or traditions to distract me from it, although I wish that was the case. In other words, if my family was more involved in our Chinese traditions instead making wealth, it would have made a big impact in my understanding of my culture as well as the “accent” I was suppose to have.

Being able to create something that is yours and make gains and wealth out of it, is an amazing achievement to a lot of the foreigners coming here. But people are often too caught up in making money and forget to celebrate their rituals or traditions. Even if they do, a lot of people do it to get it over with because it is like a yearly chore to them. It is important for kids to know who they really are and where they came from. With them not taking their culture rituals/traditions seriously, it puts a negative impact on the kids growing up. Money needs to be made to provide for their family, but culture also needs to be taught and primarily defined to the new generation of kids, so they have somewhere to start off on.