Adichie as advice for composing in the Social

Adichie’s TedTalk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” talks about how only hearing one perspective or story can create a misconception and then lead to harmful stereotypes. Talking this knowledge as advice has made me more aware of the power of a story. It can move someone to make them more empathetic or even create anger and a sense of hate. For the Social Sciences, we aim to answer a question using someone’s story. Knowing how a story can change how you see things, I want to stay true to that story. This is why things such as a transcript are crucial. You don’t want to quote or forget something that changes the tone completely.

To go more in-depth with how it can impact my transcultural interview with the theme of analyzing the Americanization of Puerto Rican individuals. I now see how one views culture as fluid and constantly evolving. How culture is explained or shown can affect how outsiders of said culture view it. Because there are countless perspectives to consider when we have someone’s perspective, we must ensure that we are not oversimplifying their words or coming to inaccurate conclusions. We must remember that we are outsiders and do not judge what we are told. We must remove our biases and questions that reinforce the idea of a single story. Allowing yourself to hear and become open to what you’re told is essential.

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Tan & Lee

The prominent subculture in the reading is writing as an Asian American individual. Many have a stereotype that if you’re Asian, you must be good in the math and science field. This discourages Asian Americans from humanities and engaging in literature. The experience in itself is a culture as having immigrant parents and seeing your parents in a vulnerable position because language is a culture. In the readings, the dynamic of an immigrant mother and their child is essential. We can see how, although the mothers in both stories want to be understood in society, their accent speaks louder than their words and creates a dependency on their children. This is a common struggle with first-generation families. The child born or has spent more time in the area becomes the family’s translator. As Tan suggests, this can make it challenging to create a different view of the language itself. In both readings, Tan has to intervene to have doctors take her mom more seriously with her test results, or Lee’s mother is absolutely humiliated due to her accent.

At first, both are from an outsider’s perspective. However, after viewing Tan’s writing, we can see that, in a way, she interviewed her mother, making it more of an insider perspective. Lee’s work is still classified as an outsider’s perspective because it is more about what he remembers, which can be misleading because they have faults when you’re going off of memories. Analyzing the work, I would have liked the authors to include more direct quotes from their mothers to back up their stories and experiences, especially Lee’s stories, explaining only how he saw the situation and how his mother might have felt. Considering this for my transcultural interview, I want to ask open-ended questions. This will allow my partner to express their experiences and emotions in their own words without the biases of an outsider. I do not want to bring my preconceived notions to the table and hope to create a comfortable space for authenticity. This made me wonder where my interview should take place and how I should make my interviewer feel when conducting the interview. I believe that approaching it in a way where I want to tell their story, not a story that I have tinted into creating, holds me accountable for how I  interview.

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Observation Experience with image

In my observation of the Walton Laundry Room. Through this experience, I saw how individuals regularly interact within this setting. Being in an electronically obsessed world, we tend to be blind to what happens around us. By putting the phone down, listening, and seeing who is in the room and what is going on, it allowed me to become a better fieldworker. Being a fieldworker means to use active observational and listening techniques and honed into interactions. When looking at a community, it’s always good to step back and not center yourself around the environment. Fieldwork requires patience, attention to detail, and knowing that even minor interactions can set the stage for a community. Seeing kids laughing, the older ladies talking and catching up, or the gentleman who came up to me and wanted to have a conversation, although I was a stranger, showed how friendly individuals were.

While writing my summary, I had to hone the importance of stepping back and observing without interference. I was concentrating on writing what I observed and what happened, and giving an unbiased perception of how I viewed the environment. Ensuring that I captured every detail and allowed my reader to imagine the space was challenging. I had to be mindful of what words to use and if they provoked my feelings about the environment when I was there. This experience challenged me to be present to the world and be more mindful of how I approach societal behaviors.

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Nalylor Mama Day 

Reading Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day allowed me to see the importance of seeing a community for how it is. Reema, our field worker within the book, allows me to see the importance of representing a community the way it’s supposed to. In the story we were introduced to the idea of traditional words and how others not as involved with the culture can become confused and misinterpret the definition of these words. 18 & 23  a phrase which our fieldwork was confused on throughout the story almost felt like a cryptic message which was deciphered as we read more. Throughout the story we see how hard it is to captivate a community as an outsider. Through the story Reema although he was a part of the community at some point still is an outsider due to how disconnected he was. The way he talked to them almost as he intentionally felt above them could be felt throughout the writing. This is something I had to reread to see as when I first read it all I could focus on was how understanding they were to his misinterpretations of the language.

This surprisingly reminded me of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, a Novel by Grace Lin. Here culture is also very prominent and the fieldworker within the story had to sit back at times to understand the history behind certain norms. In the case of this novel it was the inability of having a river and here within Mama Day it’s more of verbal normals. Overall I loved the way mama day was written it really allowed me to see the compassion they had for an individual like Reema that most likely meant no harm and meant well. It also allowed me to see the value of cultural history and how that can shape a community.