The Chinese In All Of Us Richard Rodriguez Summary

The point of this essay, “The Chinese in All of us” by Richard Rodriguez, was to show that America is one giant melting pot. That there is no such thing as an “American” culture. An American culture cannot exist as one central thing because there are so many cultures that mixed together to form what we have now. It’s a never ending cycle of growth as a country. The immigrants come to America and with them, they bring their ideas and customs. While they learn the customs we already have we, in turn, adopt some of theirs that we observe along the way.
You can tell in this essay that Rodriguez loves America. He was interviewed as a Mexican American who explored multiculturalism in the American society. During this interview he was asked whether he thought of himself American or Hispanic, he answered he thought of himself to be Chinese. Most people would just brush that answer off as him being stupid or not take it seriously. However, he goes on to explain that he grew up in San Francisco, which is a predominantly Asian city. He explains that living in such a close proximity to that, the cultures start to blend together creating something new. “I AM MY CULTURE.
On one side, you are losing everything that you know, everything that you are as a person. It’s like you’re being stripped clean to start over completely. Everything is being torn away all at the same time and that can be painful to adjust to. However, on the other side of the spectrum, you are growing as a person at an exponential rate trying to keep up with everything going on around you. That is where the magic Rodriguez was talking about comes in. Despite everything, all of the changes, the adaptations you had to make to yourself, you are still you. That’s the whole point. You may have picked up a few new things along the way but ultimately under everything, nothing has truly changed. You are still the same person as before; you have just