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Elaine H. Kim, Korea (1961- )
I.
Literal Comprehension
Context: This essay is written by
Elaine H. Kim, Korea (1961- ), a professor at the Department of Ethnic Studies,
University of California, Berkeley, USA. She has described about her experience
of her upbringing in America as a Korean-American child in this essay.
The writer loves fortune-telling.
She has consulted with many fortune-tellers. They said her saju, the
configuration of year, month, day, and hour of her birth, would have guaranteed
success and happiness to a man, but for a woman they suggest disaster. Women
with her saju make better wives and mothers. Women fortune-tellers said that
she must have lots of fun in her life. The writer says both guesses are true in
her personal life. An amateur fortune-teller available at a fund-raising party
organized by the Korean Community Center said that her goals and ideas were
shaped between her ages of twelve and seventeen. This was wrong. The
fortune-telling was born in Korea and guessed that the writer was happy being a
teenager in the US because she didn’t have to suffer in the devastating Korean
war of the 1950s.
During and after the Korean War, the
writer had seen her parents struggling for their own lives in the US while
serving other Korean refugees. As a teenager, she had faced a lot of problems
because of the differences in cultures inside and outside her house. The Korean
language was used and the Korean culture was observed inside her house, but the
people outside her house even didn’t know where Korea was. She was taught that
all of the world’s great inventions and discoveries were made by Europeans and
Americans.
There was a wide racial
discrimination between the whites and the non-whites and gender discrimination between
males and females in America during 1950s. The Blacks were victimized by the
American police.
Although Asian Americans were allowed
to live in white neighborhoods, they were often harassed by the whites. They,
along with the Blacks and the Jews, couldn’t stay in hotels on the way. In
fact, most Americans treated the Asians as foreigners or outsiders.
The writer was determined to be a
cheerleader because she wanted to be popular and also because it would
guarantee her the identity of being an original American girl. To be a cheerleader
would mean a major victory for her; therefore, she worked very hard for it. She
also wanted to prove that she could do the almost impossible. She, in fact,
wanted to change her identity.
When the writer grew older, she
learned about racism and gender discrimination. Then, she started to work to
educate people against racism and sexism.
II.
Interpretation
This essay might be trying to tell
us that however one tries to change one’s identity one cannot do that.
Actually, it’s an act of foolishness. The writer felt humiliated and
discriminated during her teens because of her identity as an Asian American.
She was born in the US from the Korean immigrants. Though she spoke English as
well as the native whites in America, she was always mocked at by them with the
terms ‘chink’ and ‘jap’. Therefore, she tried to change her identity and be a
complete American by practicing all the values and cultures of the country. She
even tried to avoid her parents to hide her true identity. Through her hard
work and strong determination, she succeeded in becoming a cheerleader in her
college. She had thought of gaining popularity and attention of the crowd by
doing so, but again she felt humiliated in the crowd of wide-eyed white
American girls. Finally, she realized that her identity was unchangeable.
The writer didn’t try to change her
identity out of her own willingness or curiosity. In fact, the racial and
gender discrimination that had dominated the American society during 1950s had
forced her to do so. Therefore, the writer also wants to convince her readers
that people should be made aware against the bad practice of racism and sexism
for establishing a just society.
III.
Critical Thinking
The main point of the essay is
undoubtedly the rampant racial and gender inequalities that existed in America
when the writer was a teenage high school goer. Even today American society is
not better. Though the Americans boast themselves of being highly educated,
highly civilized and more advanced than other people in the world, why are they
so much narrow-minded? They always teach others about democracy and its values,
but they have yet to implement its values in their own country. Despite knowing
about the American racism, I wonder why so many people from around the world
including Nepal want to go there every year through DV Lottery?
IV.
Assimilation
Previously, I thought racism and
sexism exist only in the developing countries like Nepal. Now, I’m clear at the
point that even an advanced society like the American is not free from such
viruses. Therefore, people’s arrogance and lack of awareness, not the geographical
location of a country, are the factors that cause such problems in a society.
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