Emily, Unfiltered

 I am Asian American. Not Asian-American, but Asian American.  Maybe for some, the hyphen may seem trivial. Just a game of semantics? But for me, my identity is not mutually exclusive; it is not something to be divided into halves, implying that I am only partially loyal to my Korean identity and the other half loyal to my American identity. I have come this far to be able to celebrate being Korean and American, both fully at the same time.  Maxine Hong Kingston confronts her dual heritage in "The Woman Warrior". She idealizes the "talk-story" that she grew up hearing as a Chinese girl, while also reflecting on her "American life".  My life, like Kingston's, is a crossroads of cultures: growing up, I went to Sunday school every weekend, where everyone looked just like me. At the same time, I'd come home to go to a friend's birthday party or a play date in elementary school and be the only face without fair skin. For God's sake, I watched Cr

21 years ago, the events of 9/11 left a nation deeply wounded. The shock of the attacks on American soil reverberated across the entire world, and it changed life as Americans knew it. At the same time, its societal response included a heightened sense of national pride. Even people hesitant to support America due to their various reasons gave their expressions of support: Sarah Vowell writes in "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" that "In September, people across the country and all over the world- including, bless them, the Canadians, and they are born sick of us- were singing the American national anthem." But after a while, that sense of unity and community dissolved. Society once again became divided, as stark disagreements gave rise to the polarized nature of America today.  While the case of the aftermath of 9/11 can be looked at as a broad example, this set-up can be noticed as a pattern. The Fourth of July is a case in point: when we discussed in class what celebra

In the poem "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins, the teacher trivializes the details of major historical events so as to "protect his students' innocence". But as the poem goes to show, shielding the youth from the truths of reality does more harm than good. That only lends itself to ignorance. In fact, it is more often than not that younger generations are criticized for just that: being "too sensitive".  As of late, the generational divide has become severe. Rather than blaming whole systems and institutions for not serving our society as we envision, we instead point fingers. For example, a politically correct Gen-Zer is most often stereotyped as a "snowflake"- a derogatory label to describe those who are overly sensitive and fragile. It is true that humor has evolved over time- older generations are accustomed to certain jokes that do not align with the culture shift that younger generations grew up into. Something that was once funny