Archive for March 30th, 2008
Native Speaker Part One
I kind of enjoyed reading the first two chapters because I find reading made-up stories are more interesting than reading memoirs. They make your life better than in the stories you read….but I don’t know. Anyway let me get in to the story because I find this story, so far, to be very interesting. I keep noticing that Chang-Rae Lee focuses a lot on speech. On page six he writes “Her signature, again: False speaker of language.” Then on page twelve he writes “I heard then speaking Spanish, and I heard English, and then something else that Lelia said was called mixup. And at the bottom of that page “If I had to guess, you’re not a native speaker…You said Leel-ya so deliberately. You tried not to but you were taking in the sound of the syllables. You’re very careful.” It’s a reoccurring theme in the first two chapters. Another theme I see is that he points out the similarities and differences between Koreans or Asians i n general to other nationalities. “A friend in middle school taught me about Korean names, how Park and Kim were always Korean, the other names like Chung and Cho and Lee maybe Korean, maybe Chinese. Never Japanese,” a quote from page ten comparing Korean last names to Chinese and Japanese last names. Lelia annoyed me because it seemed like she liked Henry but then she would always make comments about his race like the above statement. I can’t wait to read more of The Native Speaker.
Add a comment March 30, 2008
Immigration Blues
Of all my years I have been educated I never learned quite how hard it is for people from different countries to immigrate into America and try and live here when everything is basically going against you. During and after reading this i felt sad for the people in this piece. In sucks that Alipio’s wife dies and then you have these two women are about to get deported and are telling their stories to Alipio. Although I was sad through the story I giggled a little when I read that people wanted Alipio to marry Monica so she could stay in the country. I don’t know why but every time I watch TV or hear of someone wanting to marry another person so they can stay in America I just laugh because I think that people should get married because they love each other. Also with the media influencing everything such as clothing and makeup and hair to what we watch on TV, making fun of people marrying each other to stay in the country we just laugh at it because it is absurd. Anyway I did enjoy reading this piece because I thought that it was interesting.
Add a comment March 30, 2008
All I Asking For Is My Body
I definitely vote this better than reading Frank Chin. Milton Murayama’s All I Asking For Is My Body and Monica Sone’s Nisei Daughter had some similarities between them. For example Sone had always felt ashamed of being Japanese and in Murayama’s section that we read he says that he had also felt ashamed about being Japanese. In Nisei Daughter Sone’s mother told her to not feel ashamed of being Japanese and in Murayama they have the same thing. He says “Be proud you’re Japanese. Never bring shame to the Japanese race. What if they, all of them, bring shame to me?” In the Nisei Daughter Monica Sone feels the same way about her heritage and being both Japanese and American. Both novels talked about the internment camps as well. They both described the camps to very horrible. Murayama described the strict rules that went around in Hawaii such as a Japanese couldn’t carry more than two-hundred dollars with him or her. I also found it interesting that Murayama had many Christian things such as symbols and views. I liked that his father wanted his family to have a Christian background because it was like blending two different cultures except with religion, I think.
Add a comment March 30, 2008
