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Final Paper: American on the weekdays and Japanese on the weekends (1970)

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American on the weekdays and Japanese on the weekends (1970) I am a hybrid, not belonging to one but a mixture of multiple identities. Owning two identity cards makes me multicultural: dual citizenship with Japan and America.  With my experiences of living in Japan and America during different developmental years, I’ve become more aware of how important my Japanese-American identities are. It has been a necessity to code-switch because when I’m in the majority, I feel that I can never completely live up to the societal scripts associated with my “Japanese” or “American” identity. Just like how my peer, Hannah Rivera stated in her essay “Battling my Cultural Identity”, “There is a constant ‘struggle of borders’ for me and where I fit in, as I am not White ‘enough’ to be considered Caucasian, but at the same time I am not Salvadoran ‘enough’ to be considered Salvadoran. I do not fit in anywhere, no matter how hard I try. I am constantly facing an ‘inner war’ between these different ...
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Final Paper

  Trying to Understand My Japanese-American Identity (1292) I am a hybrid. Owning two identity cards makes me multicultural; dual citizenship with Japan and America.  With my experiences of living in Japan and America during different developmental years, I’ve become more aware of how prevalent my Japanese-American identities are. In this paper, I argue that I have never lived anywhere where I can fully embrace my Japanese-American identity and being a woman. It has been a necessity to code-switch because when I’m in the majority, I feel that I can never completely live up to the societal scripts of “Japanese” or “American” identity.  For the first half of my life, I lived in different parts of Japan. When I lived in Japan, I felt fully Japanese and never acknowledged my American identity because it is rare to have dual citizenship and the Japanese government prefers people to choose one citizenship over another at a certain age. At the time, I was not as tan, fairly th...
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  Writing Assignment #1 (633) As an Asian American, I became more aware of how my race is constructed once I moved to the states, where it is not homogenous like Japan. Being Asian in this country means I’m put into a checkbox with a list of stereotypes and when I don’t fit with the stereotypes, I’m perceived as “other” or “not Asian enough”. Society expects me to be a monolith, skinny, short, wears glasses, can’t speak English/English Language Learner (ELL)/speaks with an accent, has strict parents who want their kids to get good grades and go to top elite colleges and universities, cultural/spiritual, soft/gentle, and the model minority myth is pushed on us in order to make us seem the other races look “lazy” and white people and Asian people are the “hard working” races. Asian people are seen as very successful (academically and financially) due to the model minority myth but that harms the community because it makes it hard for us to ask for help. In school when we need help wi...
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