Cultural Expectations for Women within America :: essays research papers

Cultural Expectations for Women within AmericaEvery year around a million immigrants come to America in hope to come forward a better life for their family. They leave with virtually nothing, just the raiment on their backs and a few, hard earned coins. As they start a new life here in the United States, most immigrants die hard to notice the drastic differences that atomic number 18 present between their culture and westerly society, particularly in the way women are supposed to talk and behave. In the excerpt from Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston addresses these hardships as a Chinese girl who is searching for her voice in America. During the excerpt, Kingston portrays fitting into these pagan expectations as absolutely necessary, as shown in the last paragraph in Page 10. She says things like If you dont talk then you bay windowt be a house wife. Or Dont you ever want to be a cheerleader? (Kingston 10) At the clock time of this scene, the vote cou nter was so sure that the American way was the right way, that she bullies a younger student into changing. Alas the student never changes and the narrator falls cast for a year and a half because of her ill actions. up to now, plenty has changed since that time of the Korean War (1950s.) Nowadays, these expectations of what is an American woman are changing. Compared to the 1950s, women currently are holding much more power, and are viewed as a boss sex symbol.In the 1950s, a womans life driveway was pretty clear cut, graduate from high school and find a good man while your ultimate goal is to start a family and maintain an orderly house. This is shown when Kingston says to the little girl Some unrivalled has to marry you before you can become a housewife. She says this as if sightly a housewife is a top priority for a woman. However presently, most women in America hold very respectable jobs and the division as housewife is slowly disappearing from American culture. Anoth er usage of modern day women showing strength is portrayed when the narrators mother goes on a cultural rampage and forces the narrator to go to the drug store and demand a piece of candy just now because the druggist missed the address of the house. This scene is shown in pages three, four, and five. By doing so the narrator comes off as poor and illogical.