Literary Analysis

"First day of school!!," I shouted with nervous excitement as I jumped out the car to attend my first day at an American school. My anxiety was building high - everyone said this would change my life. They say this is good for me; that my life will be better by starting school in America at such a young age. But all I felt was separation, and hunger - as I sat on the "redpainted benches in the fall chill of noon" and last night's caldereta hiding beneath me, securing away any small differences that may betray me more than my face already has (Gloria). As the weeks passed, the "scattered rice - beneath the length of that redpainted bench - blackened with the schoolyard's dirt" as I sat and ate my turkey sandwich with my best broken English (Gloria).

This scene from Eugene Gloria's poem, "Assimilation," describes a young Filipino's loss of ethnic identity when, at school, he hides the lunch his mother prepares for him. The 'repainted benches' signifies his difference among the other kids - he is colored while his school peers where majority white. The 'fall chill of noon' not only describes the climate, but in a deeper sense, the emotional state that the young boy is feeling. Reacting to this notion of being an outsider, this young boy does all he can to challenge this state of being. He is ashamed to even eat the Filipino dish his mother prepared for lunch, and hides it from his schoolmates. As described in the poem, the rice was 'scattered' and no longer in unity as it 'blackened' with the schoolyard's dirt. The rice, usually the color of white, is no longer its original color, signifying how the young boy is no longer like his origin. He has conformed and is now living among the American ways. The following days, he tries to fit into the typical American lifestyle, as he knows it, by eating a turkey sandwich cut into two triangles with a Glad bag of chips, ultimately assimilating himself from the Filipino culture in order to blend and gain acceptance in his new American life.

Ben, from the movie film "The Debut," and Leila, the main character of the novel Bone, are examples of this assimilation. Ben takes it more to the extreme, readily wanting to be a part of the dominant culture in America. Leila, on the other hand, is stuck between the need of emotionally staying within her culture to support her parents while wanting to escape and live her life through the American lifestyle she has been brought up in. Both the novel and film raise social and cultural issues in the story about Asians in America. Within this analysis, I will be comparing and contrasting how the main characters deal with the issues of being an American-born Asian living in America and how they achieve a sense of balance between both cultures by reconciling with their generational and family conflicts. Ben and Leila achieve this balance through different strategies - whether through confronting the past or attending a traditional cultural party - and eventually gain a sense of resolution among their cultures, family, and themselves.

The main crisis present within the movie "The Debut" is the main character's inability to accept his own heritage. This can be shown through his un-involvement with his sister's debut, a traditional Filipino party to celebrate a young woman's 18th birthday. This party is usually very family-involved and consists of traditional food, family reunions, and traditional Filipino dances. Instead of being a part of this world, Ben has excluded himself entirely from the festivities and puts in extra hours at his work in order to earn money to put a down-payment in his school of choice (to pursue his dreams of becoming an artist). This poses another conflict between Ben and his strict immigrant father, Roland, a postal worker intent on seeing Ben become a doctor. Roland, like any natural father, strives to give his children a better life than he had and the only way he sees that happening is through a successful career. Ben, though, is struggling to be accepted by America and therefore rejects his Filipino heritage and takes his father's opinions of work-ethic as being short-sighted and merely a cultural dictation.

Ben is holding a "cultural self-hatred" from the beginning of the story and is ultimately assimilating himself from his Filipino heritage. He hates who he is and where he comes from. One way Ben has assimilated was by always keeping a certain distance between his friends and his family. His best buddies, who are white/American, are actually curious about Ben's home life but keep getting shuffled aside. After much hesitation to let his friends into his Filipino household, he was quick to get them out and was thoroughly embarrassed. When they mentioned the inviting cooking aromas, Ben actually took that as a criticism of the way his home smells. He was too concerned with the "different" atmosphere to realize that his friends were accepting and interested to share and learn about his culture. In addition, another way that Ben has assimilated himself from his Filipino culture is shown through his first love interest, who happens to be a very nice white woman. In fact, on the night of his sister's party, Ben has made plans to meet with this pretty white girl at a high school party and is torn between the two events. The temptation to ditch his relatives to be with his friends at a kegger across town tugs at Ben throughout the evening.

Leila, the narrator to the novel Bone, also faces tough tribulations among her culture and family. Both Ben and Leila are Americans dealing with parents who are born and "live" in their culture. On the other hand, both main characters approach this situation in different matters. As opposed to Ben's way of 'assimilating' one self, Leila seems to 'hold' responsibility of taking care of her mother and physically being her emotional support, even if she does not want to. Leila wants to escape the life of Chinatown but cannot. She takes this role because her sister, Nina, is already busy in her own life, and the middle sister, Ona, has passed away. In Ben's situation, it is easy to leave his family alone because his older sister is already standing in the place of the "good child." In that sense, it seems as though the parents are already taken care of.

Leila is also facing generational/family conflicts with her mother, to anything as simple as eating steak for dinner to the requirements of a ceremonial marriage. Her mother, Mah, is still very much fixed in her Chinese traditions and heritage. She has not come to accept the fact that her daughters, who were born and raised in America, have adapted to this foreign culture. At any little space of time that she can, she will