Blog: "From Assimilation" by Shishir Kurup and "Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Asian American Differences" by Lisa Lowe

Nouriyah Saleh

May 11, 2017

Blog Response: "From Assimilation" and "Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Asian American Differences"

Both Kurup and Lower discuss the topic of assimilating into American culture. Kurup uses several different instances where people are interacting and there's an underlying theme, mostly relating to stereotypes of who is considered American. Lowe, on the other hand, talks about the disruption and distortion of traditional culture through the assimilation of immigrants and their children. She talks about how culture is always changing and is seen differently through generations, gender, and class. In Lowe's article, we can see the theme that culture is never fixed and always changing.

I related to Lowe's article a lot because being an Asian American myself and having traditional parents, I experience the expectations of gender roles. My mother always expects me to behave well, to dress conservatively, greet and help out guests if we ever have any, and treat my elders with respect. In one of Lowe's examples, she talks about how a daughter took her mother to the salon and they both thought differently of the situation because of generational and cultural differences in relation to Chinese and American culture. In addition to those differences in generations, gender, and class, I think there's a bunch of other factors affecting the relationships between Asian Americans and their immigrant parents. Sometimes, there's ignorance and/or a lack of communication and understanding. As an Asian American, I've always known that I look at the world different from my parents because I'm of a different generation, but I have always been more concerned with why our relationship is the way it is and what caused them to act the way they do as parents.