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Peeling Bananas

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Peeling Bananas
English M01 A Monika Savic Autobiography Journal Peeling Bananas Wendy Lee wrote this essay when she was in high school. She was born in America, but her parents were born in China. While she focuses mainly on going to school, she wants to be an American but without losing her hybrid of two cultures. In her first paragraph, she talks about her friend’s father compared her to a banana, because she has the yellow skin of a Chinese, but inside she is white like an American. She thinks she has no different with other people in the kindergarten. In the second and third paragraph, she talks about in the kindergarten, her teacher’s decision to have students color paper dolls, and they made red for Indians, black for Afro-Americans, and yellow for Chinese. The dolls that didn’t color at all were for Americans. That experience made her got lock of similarity and equality. In the fourth paragraph, she talks about the differences between Chinese and American culture. She never noticed the disparity between her lifestyle and that of white Americans, until she began school. And her mother taught her how to use chopsticks, and showed her satin Chinese dresses, but she was more concentrated on American style. After her mother decided to send her to Chinese School, she got the same predicament with other Chinese- American children, they were not able to speak, read, or write Chinese nicely. At the same time, she began to understand more and more between Chinese culture and American culture. She found the deep respect and worship. She realizes that as a hybrid of two cultures, she is special, and perhaps that uniqueness should be preserved. As a Chinese girl and I have the same experience with her. I’m studying in a country that has totally different culture from my motherland. May be one day I can become a citizen in America, but I will always remember that I am a Chinese, and I want my first-generation children to remember the way their ancestors lived. Because we are hybrid of two cultures or more, we are unique, and we should preserve our uniqueness culture. That’s our advantage.

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