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Reading about fictional experiences that are entirely unlike my own can lead me to have empathy for the real struggles of people from different backgrounds. By understanding literature from a different perspective, I can begin to understand the world from a different one as well. This is particularly impacting to me because I do not regularly face oppression, and clearly understand a single perspective. through fiction understand...Through understanding the stories of Maxine Hong Kingston in Woman Warrior and of Esperanza Cordero in The House of Mango Street, I can discover the attempt of bicultural females to find her identity by way of American standards.
connect to empathy, I have become more empathetic about women of other cultures, had a stereotype about latino, or Chinese women, understood that until read the books. how authors make characters more than that. authors show out unvalued they are in communities- stereotype is incomplete, experience is more complicated when they belong to another culture, more complicated than my experience in one culture. these women humanized into complex characters.

-  Novel 1- Woman Warrior
mention one dimension that author made more complex- how i see stuff differently, how kingston debunks myth, grown to understand ____
- finds her identity despite two different standards of beauty and behavior
- I can show her mother and sister and how different cultures shaped them and their goals?, show the women       in her life
- how Kingston reconciles 2 identities -"sometimes I hated the ghosts for not letting us talk" pg 183
- what her escape method is for internal turmoil- writing
- marginalization, no connection to new people in a western world
- "it translated well" pg 209, personal victory in dealing with the "ghosts"- white people
-not defined by family expectations of her

end: how that created empathy

- Novel 2- The House on Mango Street
- grapples with her Chicano identity amidst American standards of beauty
- focusing on physical beauty and position in family
- struggles with name, pg 11, " I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me"
-struggles with how marginalized she is, compared to wealthy americans, the mayor coming,
- finds freedom with writing- "I like to tell stories. I am going to tell you a story about a girl who didn't want to belong"- pg 109
pg 10- "I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong." -make this connection somehow, conclusion?
-tries to break free from the cycle of poverty that traps her because of racism,
-not defined by family's expectations of her to marry and stare out of window

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In “Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer,” by Murphy Paul, the author argues that reading fiction can make people have more empathy and a better understanding of other’s experiences. More specifically, the author believes that, “‘deep reading’…is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art.” According to Paul, the “spiritual reading” of deep thought needs to be engrained in children’s minds in order for them to become apart of a literary world with depth and meaning for them.
growing intellectually and emotionally, quote "individuals who often read fiction appear to be better able to understand other
people, empathize with them and view the world from their perspective."

In “Should Literature Be Useful?” by Lee Siegel, the author debates that although some studies show that non-fiction produces less empathetic readers, practical skills should be also be valued. More specifically, Siegel argues that “Instead of proclaiming the superiority of fiction to the practical skills allegedly conferred by reading non-fiction, the studies implied that practical effects are an indispensable standard by which to judge the virtues of fiction.” In other words, this of fiction strengthening emotional intelligence in more complex than others think, according to Siegel. She writes that understanding what someone is feeling is not synonymous with cultivating compassion for that person.

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"They are without respect for all things living, including themselves" 29. This is an example about the the community doesn't value certain kids that are very under privileged.

"My father says when he came to this country he ate hamandeggs for three months. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hamandeggs. That was the only word her knew. he doesn't eat hamandeggs anymore" 77. This highlights the difficulty of coming into a new culture and becoming accustomed to a new language.

"You become a different Sally. You pull your skirt straight, you rub the blue paint off your eyelids. You don't laugh, Sally. You look at your feet and walk fast to the house you can't come out from" 82. This is an example of how girls are raised to be pristine and without any physical faults.

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The reporting is the vengeance- not the beheading, not the gutting, but the words. And I have so many words- "chink" words and "gook" words too- that they do not fit on my skin" (53) Kingston is describing the overt racism that she goes through daily and describes the pain of trying to assimilate to another culture.

"I wrap my American successes around me like a private shawl" (52) She is battling her two cultures

"Sometimes I hated the ghosts for not letting us talk; sometimes I hated the secrecy of the Chinese." (183). She is battling the Chinese expectation of her to be silent and dominated by other because of her gender.

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"...Physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought... in equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap." (122). This explains why Pecola's mother raises Pecola so bad, because she has never been comfortable with herself first.

"And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred. The Thing to fear was the Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful and not us" ( 74).
The girls knew that Maureen was not a horrible person, but it was racism that drove their hatred towards her.

"At some fixed point in time and space he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see" (48).  This is an example of how Pecola's physical appearance, race, and age, and gender lead of her to feel invisible.

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Hambro says, "We are making temporary alliances with other political groups and the interests of one group of brothers must be sacrificed to that of the whole" (502). This shows how socially invisible the invisible man is.

"We don't have to worry about the aggressiveness of the Negroes. Not during the new period or or any other. IN fact, we now have to slow them down for heir own good. It's a scientific necessity." 503. This shows the mistaken and deluded methodology of the Brotherhood.

"I feel suddenly that I have become more human... More human. Not that I have become a man, for I was born a man. But that I am more human. I fell strong. I feel able to get things done" (pg. 346) This shows that the protagonist is discovering other ways to protest and fight racism.

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Esperanza is similar to Kingston in that she also sets herself free from the constraints of her community and society through writing. Cisneros presents the female stereotype that she either is a pure women without a love interest, or a bad female with too much of a desire to be loved. Esperanza navigates through these expectations through her writing. All of the stories in The House of Mango Street are stereotypical stories about what effect poverty and racism have on people, but unfortunately embody the truth in Cisneros's eyes.

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Kingston fought her family and communities's expectations by not assimilating into their role of mother and wife at a young age that they constructed for her. She puts herself into a career that had been driven by men- a writer, and this career sets her free of all constrictions, so she acts a free women, overcoming the stereotype that she has to bound to the status quo. Immigrants are expected to leave all of their customs at the country in which they left from, but Kingston writes that she found peace between her two cultures. She deals with the American expectation of her become completely dominated by men and the Chinese expectation of her to be outspoken and write freely.

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Toni Morrison presents Pecola's parents as stereotypes in order for readers to understand how discriminatory and unfair society is in raising children to become neglectful parents to their children. She uses Pecola as an example of how negative people who embody stereotypes can be in raising a child. Her father follows the stereotype that men can not have any other strong emotions besides anger, and her mother embodies the stereotype that a woman wants pure and clean (white) things or people in her life, shutting out all who do not follow her wishes.

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Mexican American

Female

Immigrant

Low-income

Esperanza is unsure about being a Mexican American, facing different expectations from each culture.  She is also unsure about being a female in a society that has two strict standards for her: pure and good or experienced and bad.

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Mexican Americans should leave their cultural roots behind them.

Communities especially in low-income families don't care for one another, as they have enough problems individually.

Father's aren't expected to provide for their families, but think solely about themselves.

Females are either have no sexual experience and are pure or they have lots of sexual experience and are bad women.

Women can not want love without being labeled as a bad woman.

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Chinese American

Female

Immigrant

Familial roles

Kingston tries to find her identity despite her family's strict expectations for her to assume the traditional female American role once she is in America. She also has to battle two different cultures of China and America

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Women are expected to act as slaves in the household.

Women aren't expected to fill in dominant and asserting roles in their families and community.

Marrying and having children is essential to a Chinese woman's life.

Once a person is in America, they must leave their previous culture in their country that they came from.

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how one fits in community

African American

Female

youth

status

Beauty

Pecola is facing obstacles of her youth, gender, status, and race, in order to find her voice. These obstacles become too much eventually, leading her to insanity.

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Boys aren't raised to have caring emotions to support their families emotionally.

Mothers with difficult pasts of neglect ignore their problematic children.

Pecola's parents act as stereotypes that are both absent in her life, due to difficult pasts. Toni Morrison uses the stereotypical characters of an unstable family to criticize how a white society makes them that way.

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Society expects the African American to fit into either two forms of fighting racism; following the wishes of white people in a way to somehow fight discrimination or follow the wishes of other black people. They aren't expected to not either of these two extreme ways of fighting racism. The invisible man partly finds his identity through these two methods of living. Ellison gives into the white people's expectation of invisible man for time when the protagonist hibernates, but Ellison has him emerge from his solicitude. The protagonist contributes to society with his individual ideas that are not encouraged by white people, but his own experience.

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whitewashed version of being black in America

becoming invisible to discover identity

education

assimilation

black power method of radicalism

gender

The protagonist tries to discover his own identity despite what others see him as. He fights the obstacles of different ways to be a "correct" African American. He fights oppression through others, before coming to terms with himself only after becoming invisible.

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African American aren't as complex as white people and don't need to be noticed as people with deep emotions and contributions to society.

Minority groups are synonymous with their goal and motivations, with little internal division.

Black people can only succeed through the support of white people, being subservient in order to gain a voice in society.

There is one way to be an African American.