21st American & the American Dream

My answer has not wandered much since the last time I was asked about what it means to be an American in the 21st century. I still believe that there is no set identity. We are all different shades, different textures of hair, and different goals. However we all yearn for and appreciate the freedom we obtain as a citizen. I do not believe you necessary have to be a “citizen” to call yourself an American either, nor would English have to be your first language. America has allowed us to be a nation of multi culture and multi languages. I think being an American in our current time allows a lot more room of acceptability. I understand we still have issues with race and discrimination but I think we are at a better stage than we ever were and hopefully it will increase. It is also a huge moment for the virtual world. We all strive for the ipods, the iphones, and rely heavily on the internet to find us a perfect mate. I love technology but I think it has unfortunately left us with less and less emotions due to the lack of connection with people. For example, we text instead of calling. I find it a little disturbing to look at the numbers of single mothers just within people I have met or know. Women are considered LUCKY if they are still with the father of their child and they are taking care of that child.
\I do believe that every one has the opportunity to access the American Dream because every one decides what that dream is. Some may be simple due to their lifestyle and needs and others may complex and unrealistic because of their different upbringing. But these are all American Dreams. It comes down to what people have and do not have. The richer already have what the poor don’t so their dreams strive for more. The poor have yet to catch up with the wealthy so their dream may be simplistic and be something the wealthy would have taken for granted. But in the end I believe it’s a pursuit of happiness and never a destination. We will always want more. I always want more. I find things that I want and think that once I have them I will be satisfied but it only leads to another want. I will never be completely happy with the things I have, someone will always be out doing me and ill be on my constant journey to out do them.

woman warrior

Overall this was a good book. A lot better than I thought because I knew this book was going to have something to do with ghost and I was afraid it was going to be very similar to Beloved. It went a bit slow for me at first, but it definitely picked up. The ghost stories weren’t ones that I rolled my eyes about; they seemed modern like it could have been a tv series or movie. In particular I’m thinking of the story where brave orchid was away at school and slept in the haunted room to prove her classmates wrong. Only she was proven wrong when a ghost sat on her and tried to suffocate her. It took me a while to catch on to the fact that everyone in the book who was not Chinese was considered a ghost. I assumed because I had heads up about the book being about ghost like Beloved that maybe it was some sort of ghost town. But as I got more and more into the book I did come to realize that every American figure such as mail men were considered ghost. This showed another act of discrimination like many we have seen in all the other books we have read. These Chinese people thought that anyone who was different was not even considered human, like slaves weren’t considered human during beloveds time. My favorite of the stories was the one with Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid searching for Moons double life husband. That is something I could see me and my friends doing so I like the way it seemed so real in my mind. I like things that are easy to relate with and can mean something in my life. With that said my least favorite of the stories was the one where the girl is learning to fight better than a man and defeat armies alone. Having seen Mulan it helped me get the idea of what the scene was about but I couldn’t appreciate it.

BELOVED

I hated beloved with a passion when I began to read it. It took me 3 days and numerous tries just to get through the first 4 pages. I kept beginning and stopping not able to get through it. Once I did, merely by force, the only reaction I had from it was confusion. I did not understand a lot of the situations that occurred do to the flashbacks with little transitions. I found it hard to relate with any of the characters and had to imagine Paul D as Pauly D from Jersey Shore just to allow the book to be some sort of entertainment. I think if I read a book on slavery that made it easier to relate, I may be enlightened with some new appreciation. But Toni Morrison story is less appealing to me because it seems so far fetched to me. I am not a fan of ghosts and spirits and was kind of thrown back from the idea that beloved was a ghost who had came back after all this time to seek revenge on her homicidal mother. I felt that you had to pay really close attention to every word that had been written or something significant would be meaningless to you in the end. This was true to me, while discussing the book in class, I realized that you as classmates had absorbed a lot more information from the book than I did, and some of the scenes being described seemed as though it was the first time id ever heard it. This was a really humbling book, much different than the other two we read in my eyes.