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In ‘The Story of My Body’ by Judith Cofer, she and Julia share the experience of moving from one country to another and getting accustomed to a new culture. Some differences between them are that Julia had a tough time struggling with her name, while Judith struggled with her body image. In both situations, their self-values changed over time. In ‘Names Nombres’ by Julia Alvarez, she went from feeling self-conscious about her names to feeling confident about them and accepting them as a part of her daily life. Her new attitude is shown ‘after the commencement ceremony, my family waited outside in the parking lot while my friends and I signed yearbooks with nicknames that recalled our high school good times: ‘Beans’ and ‘Pepperoni’ and ‘Alcatraz’. We hugged and cried and promised to keep in touch (Alvarez). In Judith’s case, she learned to be more accepting of her body and decided not to let others change her for who she is. After understanding that she was too focused on what others’ opinions were of her, Judith decided that ‘my studies, later my writing, the respect of people who saw me as an individual person they cared about. These were the criteria for my sense of self-worth that I would concentrate on in my adult life’ (Cofer).
In ‘The Story of My Body’ by Judith Cofer, she expresses the idea that while one’s culture can make them stand out, it can also make them labeled and overlooked as well. When her crush declined their dance, ‘Ted’s father had known Puerto Ricans in the army. He had lived in New York City while studying architecture and had seen how the course lived. Like rats. Ted repeated his father’s words to me as if I should understand his predicament when I heard why he was breaking our date'(Cofer). This reveals that because of her cultural background, she was judged by someone who had never met her and couldn’t have possibly known her as an individual person. Ted’s father grouped her in with the Puerto Ricans that he met before and didn’t give her a chance to even introduce herself. Nancy Lee can relate to this situation because she was denied the art award after the award managers discovered that she was of African American descent. Nancy Lee was discriminated against because of her skin color and grouped with all other African Americans. As a result, her artistic talent was overlooked because of her culture. Julia Alvarez also experienced a similar situation when her classmates were asking about her name. Julia knew ‘they were just being curious, I knew, but I burned with shame whenever they singled me out as a ‘foreigner’, a rare, exotic, friend'(Alvarez). Julia felt overlooked because even though her classmates were being curious, no one was taking the time to understand her as an individual person or some of the things she liked. Her classmates only asked about her culture and where she was from. When one is grouped or labeled because of their culture it can make them feel overwhelmed and underappreciated. In ‘Saboteur’ by Ha Jin, Mr. Chiu is unfairly arrested and detained by policemen in Muji, China. Soon after being arrested, he is told that ‘your crime is sabotage, although it hasn’t induced serious consequences, yet. Because you are a Party member, you should be punished more (Jin). Mr. Chiu’s belief in equality caused him to stand out because he was a Party member. As a result, he was treated differently than the other prisoners. This is ironic because he is supposed to believe in equality for all and because of his beliefs he is being treated unfairly. He demonstrates brave and heroic traits from the beginning when he sends his wife home so she isn’t in danger, and how he refuses to sign the papers bearing false claims about him and saying he is a saboteur. In the police report, Mr. Chiu was dazed to see the different handwritings, which all stated that he had shouted in the square to attract attention and refused to obey the police (Jin) and something stirred in Mr. Chiu’s stomach, a pain rising to his ribs. He gave out a faint moan(Jin). The pain in his stomach symbolizes his negative experiences in jail, and things going downhill for him. By being brave and standing up for himself, he just worsened his time in jail and made things even worse for himself. By disagreeing with the police to go with the false reports, Mr. Chiu only lengthened his time in jail, which caused him to seek revenge on his way out. In One Friday Morning by Langston Hughes, Nancy Lee shows similar traits to Mr. Chiu, such as bravery and heroism. However, her personality leads to positive consequences and she even gets her teacher to help her with her newfound goal. After she was rejected for the art award, she displays bravery because instead of keeping her feelings bottled up inside of her, she expressed her feelings to her teacher and she made a promise to prevent others from being targets of discrimination in the future. As a result, Miss OShay was glad to help and Nancy Lee held no malice toward those who rejected her because of her skin color.
On the other hand, in The Story of My Body By Judith Cofer, she isn’t as brave as Nancy Lee and Mr. Chiu were. When she was a child, she was at a grocery store when discriminated against because of her race. She was shooed out of the store and berated by the owners. After Judith touched the doll she wanted for Christmas, one of the store owners yelled at her, and I felt him approach, and when I knew he was behind me, I turned around to face the bloody butchers apron. His large chest was at my eye level. He blocked my way. I started to run out of the place, but even as I reached the door I heard him shout after me (Cofer). She ran away because she was afraid and alone. Judith didn’t have anything or anyone to help her in that situation. If she did stand up to the store owner, things would have gotten ugly for her and she would have gotten into even more trouble. Judith cares about her self-image and where she comes from, but it isn’t worth getting beat up and yelled at to make her point, so she took the high road and ran away.
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