As I got older, I realised that people saw me as other things - sometimes Korean, sometimes Japanese, sometimes just Asian. When my family moved to a more affluent white neighbourhood, I started to see myself as 'other', this amorphous category. I didn't even know what 'not other' was, but I knew I wasn't it; I wasn't what was normal.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the experience of racial identity and feeling like an outsider due to societal perceptions.
In this quote, Jenny Zhang discusses how her understanding of her identity evolved as she grew older, particularly in response to the way others categorized her based on her ethnicity. Moving to a predominantly white neighborhood led her to recognize herself as 'other,' prompting a sense of alienation as she navigated her identity in a context where she felt she did not belong to the 'normal' or dominant cultural group.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about cultural identity at a diversity workshop.
Mothers have always held such symbolic weight in determining a person's worth. Your mother tongue, your motherland, your mother's values - these things can qualify or disqualify you from attaining myriad American dreams: love, fluency, citizenship, legitimacy, acceptance, success, freedom.
Southern white people despise the Negro as a race, and will do nothing to aid in his elevation as such; but for certain individuals they have a strong affection, and are helpful to them in many ways.
Sometimes you have to trust people enough to let them succeed and love them enough to let them fail.
Every couple needs to argue now and then. Just to prove that the relationship is strong enough to survive. Long-term relationships, the ones that matter, are all about weathering the peaks and the valleys.
I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.
Mutual caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other's achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain.
Once when I had remarked on the affection quite often found between cat and dog, my friend replied, "Yes. But I bet no dog would ever confess it to the other dogs.
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