Literary Analysis

"First day of school!!," I shouted with nervous excitement as I jumped out the car to attend my first day at an American school. My anxiety was building high – everyone said this would change my life. They say this is good for me; that my life will be better by starting school in America at such a young age. But all I felt was separation, and hunger – as I sat on the "redpainted benches in the fall chill of noon" and last night 's caldereta hiding beneath me, securing away any small differences that may betray me more than my face already has (Gloria). As the weeks passed, the "scattered rice – beneath the length of that redpainted bench – blackened with the schoolyard 's dirt" as I sat and ate my turkey sandwich with my best broken English (Gloria). This scene from Eugene Gloria 's poem, "Assimilation," describes a young Filipino 's loss of ethnic identity when, at school, he hides the lunch his mother prepares for him. The ‘repainted benches ' signifies his difference among the other kids – he is colored while his school peers where majority white. The ‘fall chill of noon ' not only describes the climate, but in a deeper sense, the emotional state that the young boy is feeling. Reacting to this notion of being an outsider, this young boy does all he can to challenge this state of being. He is ashamed to even eat the Filipino dish his mother prepared for lunch, and hides it from his schoolmates. As described in the poem, the rice was ‘scattered ' and no longer in unity as it ‘blackened ' with the schoolyard 's dirt. The rice, usually the color of white, is no longer its original color, signifying how the young boy is no longer like his origin. He has conformed and is now living among the American ways. The following days, he tries to fit into the typical American lifestyle, as he knows it, by eating a turkey sandwich cut into two triangles with a Glad bag of chips, ultimately assimilating himself from the Filipino culture in order to blend and gain acceptance

Bibliography: – Works Cited Gloria, Eugene. "Assimilation." Class Reader. 2001. Ng, Fae Myenne. Bone. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. The Debut. Director, writer, Gene Cajayon. Producer, Lisa Onodera. Videocassette. Celestial Pictures LLC, 5 Card Productions, 2001.