5/11 Kurup + Lowe

In Kurup's article "Assimilation", he gives the reader a perspective of being immigrants in the United States. The piece about Fat Family demonstrates the incidents that immigrants face on a day to day basis. The Arbys across the street is a sign of America's food chain, historyless burgers. The Statue of Liberty, a sign of freedom. The things immigrants face every day is not that simple because of cultural struggles or the difficulty of assimilating into a new culture. For example, many Americans think all Chinese immigrants are rich, but in reality, they may struggle understanding the English language which is hidden behind the image of a stereotypical Chinese immigrant. Not all struggles can be seen and trying to assimilate into being "American" is hard. Another piece that caught my eye was Siam. The last few lines about the girl being naturalized into being "American" made me rethink what being American is. The girl said, "When will I get my blue eyes?" This quote is important because it highlights the image immigrants have of America, the typical white man/woman with blue eyes. This reminded me of the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. A girl of color wanting blue eyes to fit into the majority.

In Lowe's article "Heterogenity, Hybridity, and Multiplicity", she talks about cultural identity, how immigrants adapt to many different cultures, and how other view immigrants. She talked about her experience being a Chinese-American. Like she feels embarass when she's around Chinese people because she feels like she's not in tune with her culture. Likewise, I feel the same when I'm surrounded by Vietnamese people or culural setting. I don't speak Vietnamese not do I fully understand the culture, so I do also feel embarssed for not knowing. Before when I was little, I had very little respect and knowledge of the Vietnamese culture/language/etc. It wasn't until high school that I started gaining interest after doing a family history project, where I interviewed my parents about their journey to America. That opened my eyes, which lead me to joining VSA (Vietnamese Student Association) at UC Davis. I wanted to learn my cultural identity.

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