final self reflection letter

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Xinyu Shang

Reading journal week3

On the reading A Shocking Fact of Life the author gives a recount of their

historical past and a trail of events on how she realized that she was a Japanese and not a

Yankee. She does not admit that she is not a Japanese till revealed to her by her parents.

The author is told by her mother, “Your father and I have Japanese blood, and so do you,

too” (A shocking fact of life 4). The parents to the narrator had migrated to the U.S to

look for greener opportunities, especially education. The narrator says, “Mother and her

sister sailed into the port looking like exotic tropical butterflies ( A shocking fact of life

6). This statement shows that they looked like foreigners. Also, the author gives a recount

of the Japanese culture and the lifestyle of their family. The author says “on mother’s bed

lay a beautiful silk comforter patterned with turquoise, apple-green, yellow and purple

Japanese parasols ( A shocking fact of life 10).

On the The Stubborn Twig the author gives an account of the Japanese culture

and how it instilled discipline through the hard way. The narrator is unwilling to undergo

the Japanese education system because it is tough compared to American grammar. The

Japanese learning system is embedded in strict disciplinary actions. The mother to

narrator tells him, “Your father and I received harsher discipline than that in Japan . . .

not only from schoolteachers but also from our own parents (The stubborn twig 26). The

narrator is being forced to adopt the Japanese culture, which is unwilling to admit. She is

reluctant to bow down to hotel patrons. The narrator was concerned with learning the

Japanese culture but rather was interested in detective magazines. Although the narrator

is interested in detective work, the police in her neighborhood have a wrong way of

handling residents. They are corrupt, something that is against Japanese culture, which

propagates honesty. Like the title “The Stubborn Twig” the father to the narrator is

stubborn not to give bribery to the police. One of the policemen puts it that “Oh, so

you’re going to be stubborn about it. Maybe you want to explain everything to the Judge,

Charlie” ( The stubborn twig 36).

On the Lon Kurashige: The problem of Biculturalism author claims culture

recognition is one of the integral aspects of a community because it brings a sense of

ownership and identification among the mass culture. Though cultural recognition is

essential, it becomes a challenge in a foreign land. People of a common language or

culture try to create factions to present them in the broad multi-language spectrum. The

author states “Hayashi found deep ambivalence among second-generation Protestants

about choosing American and Japanese culture . . . supporting Japan’s aggression in East

Asia (Kurashige 1634). In this reading, the author gives the struggle between Americans

and Japanese, whereby Americans wanted to assimilate Japanese into the American

culture. Japanese were not into the idea of American assimilationist because it did not

propagate Japanese imperialism. The Japanese intended to have a cultural recognition in

the U.S as the American culture had.

On the Takao Ozawa vs. United States The process of obtaining citizenship in the

U.S involves a broad spectrum of a legal framework. One can become a U.S citizen by

birth, naturalization, or acquisition. Naturalization is the process whereby a person not

born in the U.S voluntarily becomes a U.S citizen. The article gives an account of what

grounds African natives, and Japanese would become U.S citizens through naturalization

without discrimination. Before the revision of the naturalization act, several acts such as

The Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882 (Ozawa v. United States 6) excluded the

Chinese community from obtaining U.S citizenship through naturalization.