“Borders” and “Double Happiness”

“Borders” and “Double Happiness”
Nowadays, many cultures are disappearing and many encounter it. In “Borders”, by Thomas King and the movie “Double Happiness”, the mother and father, respectively, try to maintain their cultural identity through out their generations. Only one of the parents succeeded. It is the mother. Both made a lot of efforts but the mother made the right choices. She was able to bring her daughter back home although the father lost his daughter. There is a big contrast between the living of the mother and the father. She does not abandon reaching her goals but for the father, if nothing works with his kids, he disowns them, which is not the ideal decision.

In “Double Happiness”, the father is surely not communicable. He gets angry very fast and he forces his daughters to do everything he pleases, which gives him a bad image towards his children and make him be neglected. Therefore, the daughters hide the truth from him and it gets to a point that the older one could not support him anymore. The father takes everything serious and he ignores anything that does not have to do with the Chinese culture or even Chinese people. The older daughter goes out with a white guy and she tries her best to hide it from her father. The father prepared to her a date with another Chinese guy but she did not want any relation with him. Furthermore, even the uncle is scared to be caught by the father. Based on the movie, if the uncle gets caught having a family and a wife working as a made, he will basically be disowned by the whole family and especially by the father. He would not respect him anymore. The father is not open-minded at all. It is a shame to have a family without being married. He did not want his daughter to act and tries to hide it the best way he can from others. He does not want to be ashamed. This is based on his own perspective. At the end of the movie, the daughter could not take it anymore. She moved out and got disowned by the father, just like her older brother. The father affirms that he did not succeeded. He gives the example about his grandfather and he explains that is it not the same anymore. Based on the father in the movie, the grandfather of the family was a very wealthy man and every time he wanted something he had it right a way. He always had his family next to him and he had a lot of respect from others. The father repeats desperately that it is not the same anymore. Briefly, he failed in achieving his goals.

In “Borders”, the mother is really attached to her cultural identity. She is communicable and she is nice with her children. She succeeded in her goals about keeping her cultural identity followed by her children. Her daughter wanted to go to Salt Lake City and the mother did not forbid her from going. She did not even get disowned and the mother was not really angry about it. The mother is really proud of her culture and for her Blackfoot nationality. She will never say that she is Canadian or American. This is exactly what happened at the borders. Although the guards did not let her pass because she did not answer their question at their favor, she kept on saying that she is Blackfoot. The son said, “It would have been easier if my mother had just said ‘Canadian’ and had been done with it, but I could see she wasn’t going to do that” (King 2). The mother will never deny the fact that she is Blackfoot and this affect the thinking of her son, which is good. Her son wanted to be basically like his mother. She has a strong personality and never gives up. Referring to the son, “Pride is a good thing to have, you know. Laeticia had lot of pride so did my mother. I figured that someday I’d have it, too” (King 3). This quote proofs that the mother is on the right track and she is able to preserve her cultural identity. At the end, even the daughter wanted to come back home to her village with her family. Thus, the woman succeeded in her goals.

Even though both, the mother and the father, put a lot of efforts for keeping the cultural identity, only one accomplished his goals. The father loses one of is daughters while the mother, basically gets back her daughter. The father was disappointed about everything at the end of the story. It was not the case with the mother. She was happy. The father should have probably dealt with the problem in another way. He would have maybe succeeded just like the mother did.
759 words (without the quoting)