Blog #5- Comparing the two novels

It is very obvious that in both novels, American Born Chinese and The Bluest Eye, focus on racism and cultural identity. Pecola is seen and described by other characters in the novel as a little, dirty black girl. She has very dark skin and this makes her more "ugly" than other children who have lighter skin than her. In one scene, Marueen Peal calls Pecola ugly and a "black e mo." Because of these hurtful accusations, Pecola feels the need to be prettier or more white, so she asks and prays for blue eyes. She is trying to be something that she is not just to be accepted by the people in her community and even the world in general. White privilege is seen in this novel clearly. The black people, such as Pecola's parents and Geraldine, do not have good jobs and they make very little money. They do the wash for white population and clean their houses day in and day out.

In American Born Chinese, the issue of cultural identity is seen very clearly. The monkey king believes that he is a deity; he saved the monkeys from the tiger-spirit and he mastered the four parts of kong-fu. When he tries to get into a party held only for the gods, he is not allowed in because he is not wearing shoes. He takes this as a personal jab and beats a lot of the other gods up because he is extremely angry. For the rest of the novel he practices other art forms and believes that if he masters them he will be worshipped by others. He can transform himself and change into many forms. When he meets God he refuses to accept the fact that he is a monkey and gets infuriated when anyone calls him a monkey. He doesn't understand that God made him that way for a reason. The same type of thing happens with Jin when he tries to get Amelia's attention. He changes his appearance to look more like Greg because he is attractive and thinks Amelia likes him. When Amelia tells him that she doesn't like him Jin prays, like Pecola, that he would become more attractive and recieves a new face and hair. Jin does not make many friends at his school right away and the other kids make fun of him because he is Chinese. The same scenario occurs when Wei-Chen Sun joins the school. He is made fun of by others, even Jin at first, because he is Chinese and does not speak English very well.

Both novels focus on racism and cultural identity. Pecola, the monkey king, and Jin are not accepted by others because they are not good enough for one reason or antoher. Pecola is not liked because of her skin, the monkey king is not liked because he is dangerous from all the art forms he learned, and Jin thinks that he is not attractive because Amelia doesn't like him. Each of them wish for or change themselves in order to become more accepted by society. I think that this is another major theme that is prevalent in both novels; be who you are and be proud of it. God made us who we are and how we look for a reason and we shouldn't want to be or look like others.   

Blog #4

When we discuss discrimination the first word that comes to mind is "black". However, in our society today discrimination is not just about the color of skin. It's includes our sexual orientation, body composition, and the way we look. It is interesting to me that people still say racism is a hard topic to talk about. Maybe it's because I am white that allows me to think that talking about racism is not hard because I have never been treated differently because of my skin color. I think that the videos we watched last weekend went a little too far for our generation. We have had so many classes and so many lectures about the history of our nation and the awful things we put the black people through in the beginning that I think people our age just tune this topic out. Where I grew up, it didn't matter what skin color you had; everyone was friends with everyone. I had already watched "A Class Divided" in my sociology class last semester and I loved the experiment she did. I thought it was extremely clever and fascinating that the kids behaved the way they did. It was very important for them to learn that racism and not like people because of their color was a bad thing back then. However, I do not think that we need to be taught about it anymore. I think that the United States has made huge improvements in the past couple of generations and I think that this pattern is going to keep going. I'm not saying that one day racism will be completely demolished, because there will always be that one person who "goes against the grain", but I do believe that as the years pass people will continue to be more accepting of others.

Instead of focusing only on racism in schools, I think bullying should be address more frequently than it is. Kids know exactly how to put each other down, like we saw in the video. They believe what they hear and act on what they are told, always, no matter the generation. I think that bullying, at any age, is detrimental. Even in the past week six teens killed themselves because they were getting made fun of by their peers. In one situation, and boy and a girl thought it would be funny to hide a camera in their "friends" room. The friend wound up being gay and having sexual relations with another male and it was caught on the tape. His "friends" streamed it and sent it to all of their friends and they all ganged on the guy they had taped. All of the pressure and embarrassment led him to commit suicide. Because of these situations, I think people need to learn how to act and how to me truly nice to others from a young age. There should be certain rules put in place in elementary, middle, and high schools pertaining to bullying and they should enforce the consequences. I know in my school issues were not dealt in a good way; the staff and principle just let things slide by. I do not think this right and should be more structured so that people will not resort to suicide and hurting themselves to make things better.