July 26, 2007

These two stories are very similar in the way they are written. I really enjoyed the child’s perspective of prejudice because it was not completely understood by either one of the girls but both were intuitive about how they were different, even though they had no idea about the social acceptance (or not) of their culture in white society. The stories were also obviously similar since both small children experienced the same feelings of being different even though they were in different places and from different backgrounds. I thought it was interesting that the main character in the first story, The Schooldays of an Indian Girl, knew her ancestry because her mother and relatives were still immersed in their culture. However, in Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian, the girl was never able to know real Chinese people and visit china, she too had impressions that Chinese were dirty and vile creatures. I think that this is a very important distinction to make, for although the girl ultimately stands up for herself and decides to embrace who she is, I think that she is still very different from a Chinese American and cannot really understand any struggle other than her own. The first story is also unique because the school girl ultimately becomes to look and go through the schedule of white people and ends up diaobeying her mother to go to college. I think in the same way as the woman in the second story, she gains her own independance from any race or culture and she must be appreciated for that and not for her background.