Stereotypes In 'Trying To Find Chinatown'

Ashley Kingsman
Professor Peers
English 102
2 February 2014
Stereotypes and Finding Your Places
The drama “Trying to find Chinatown” by David Henry Hwang, and the poem “I, Too” by Langston Hughes deal with stereotypes and how the characters in both works cope with these stereotypes. While being illustrated differently by each of the two authors, there is also one major similarity both pieces possess: the theme is the same. Overcoming the obstacle of stereotypes.
Overcoming the obstacle of stereotypes is explored in “Trying to find Chinatown”, when the main character, Benjamin, is exploring his Asian American parents’ roots shortly after his father’s death, while also trying to find a sense of belonging in the world. Traveling through
Benjamin acknowledges Ronnie’s violin as a “fiddle” and it makes him slightly agitated. He angrily states to Benjamin “If this was a fiddle, I’d be sitting here with a cob pipe, stomping my cowboy boots and kicking up hay.” (p. 1796). The anger Ronnie feels is clearly displayed and clear through his harsh tone displayed in his statement; Ronnie is unaware that he and Benjamin share similar heritages. Benjamin is now dealing with an ignorant stereotype of men from the south by Ronnie’s point of view, but it is ironic because it is a stereotype possessed by a person from the very heritage he has come searching for answers for and willing to embrace and further his understandings. Benjamin responds to Ronnie’s stereotypical slur by saying: “You know, it’s very stereotypical to think that all Asian skin tones conform to a single hue.” (p. 1798); referring to the difference of their skin tones while still sharing the same genetic history and culture. Despite Ronnie’s doubts and aggressive acquisitions about Benjamin and his heritage and being told that he
From physical appearance to the core of our cultural roots, stereotypes have always been apart of the way people view and perceive other people who live and look differently than they do. Maybe it is a stereotype that all white men from the south are hillbillies that obtain inbred desires with family members (such as the comment Ronnie made to Benjamin), or just the fact that the color of your skin is a darker shade so you aren’t treated fairly and the same as everyone else because you looked different from the majority of everyone around you, as the speaker of “I, Too…” explains. In both pieces, dealing with the annoyances and misperceptions people have of others due to stereotyping based on physical observations and family histories, are both addressed by Hwang and Hughes and their stories are told through their own experiences and extended knowledge of each of their backgrounds. Secondly, there is a comparison in the ways that the speaker of Hugh’s poem and Benjamin of Hwang’s play deal with stereotypical situations while sharing the same calm tone. They are never upset, blameful, rude or obnoxious in how they feel about the issue of stereotypes. Neither have an aggressive tone when they speak, even though in Hugh’s case from “I, Too…” all of his thoughts are commuted straight from him and his own