Stranger or part of them?

I‘ve recently read a story by Gish Jen which I‘d like to present to you. “In the American Society“ is a short story about a Chinese first and second generation immigrant family in the US. The father doesn‘t believe in assimilating into the local society, the mother however tries to persuade him to let the family do so and become the member of a country club. The plot shows the difficulties of being accepted and how to interact with other foreigners. 

Callie, the son, is a static, rather flat character. We don‘t know a lot about him. Mona, his sister, encourages her mother to stand up against her husband‘s strict morals. She is a bright, optimistic girl, who is bursting with energy. His father, who is the main character, is a round character. During the story he changes a lot, but some of his qualities are still the same. At the beginning he is a generous, good-natured person, but then he alters to an ingrate, lacy employer. He is a bit patriarchal and patriotic. For him, there is nothing worse than betrayal. But we also see, how he tries to support Cedric and Booker, his two illegal workers. The mother is browbeaten and demonstrates a lot of respect for her husband. She cares about what people might think of them as immigrants. In addition, she really wants to be accepted as a member in society. 

The story is written in first person, from the point of view of the son who acts as an observer. It shows that they suffer from social marginalization and have to endure a lot of discrimination. The mother is even sometimes scared of the deportation officers. I think the author chose this point of view, because Callie describes everything objectively. He has his own opinions about his father‘s decisions. 

The story is chronologically sequenced. The climax is the last scene, where the family goes to the party of a member of the country club. It ends as a total disaster. Location and time period are important for us to understand the spirit of the age. Back then nationalism and racism were even more widespread than now. 

Teenagers might like the story, because they can see, how time has changed. In former times it was almost impossible to be accepted, when you were no native American. Although I‘m very interested in this theme, I wouldn‘t recommend Gish Jen‘s story. It is neither exciting, nor elaborated. I think there is nothing special about it. If you disagree or can think of anything else I haven‘t mentioned, feel free to comment. 

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Would you defend a homosexual?

Would you defend a homosexual?

The story “Brotherly Love” is about a Mexican family. The protagonist is called Luis. Other characters are his brother Bernie, his sister Rosalinda and their father.
One day, Luis talks to his sister about Bernie, that he is worried that he might be gay, because he likes to go shopping plus loves to cook and bake. Their father is very religious and once yells at Bernie, because he thinks he is homosexual. But Bernie defends himself and hence also Luis, who is gay, by saying that there is nothing strange about it and that God loves everyone. Although he is not gay, he knows, as well as Rosalinda does, that Luis secretly likes boys. The teenagers know that their father is against those kinds of love, but Bernie and Rosalinda protect Luis and do not tell anyone about his secret. 

The story takes place in Mount Carmel, Mexico, in the 21th century. The family is very religious and visits the church every Sunday morning. It is told from the first person point of view, because in the first sentence it says: “The day I talked to my sister started out to be an ordinary Sunday.” And then it continues like this. It is written by the author Francisco X. Stork, but narrated by the character “Luis”. The climax of the story is when Luis’ sister explains that Bernie was defending Luis and not himself. With this she tells him that they knew about his secret.
I think the message of the story is that nobody should judge someone just because he is not like you or does not like the same things as you do and that human-beings or especially siblings should help each other when someone is in a difficult situation and does not know how to deal with it. 

I think the story is quite cool. It is not very difficult to understand and you easily understand the message of it even without knowing every single word.
I suppose teenagers would like this story because surely there are some out there who could identify themselves with Luis. Maybe they are in a similar situation and their parents were also not very pleased when they found out that their son or daughter preferred his or her sex more than the other one.  If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below.

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