Wall+2-Emma+Stevens

**The American Individual Defined Through Race**
“One should deplore any loss of uniquity in a world that has so little. (p.120, Rodriguez)"

//The Woman Warrior//

“Brothers and sisters, newly men and women, had to efface their sexual color and present plain miens. Disturbing hair and eyes, a smile like no other, threatened the ideal of five generations living under one roof. To focus blurs, people shouted face to face and yelled from room to room. The immigrants I know have loud voices, unmodulated to American tones even after years away from the village where they called their friendships out across the fields. I have not been able to stop my mother’s screams in public libraries or over telephones. Walking erect (knees straight, toes pointed forward, not pigeon toed, which is Chinese-feminine) an speaking in an inaudible voice, I have tried to turn myself American feminine.(p.11, Kingston) ”

// The Problem We All Live With//, Norman Rockwell 1964

“Being a minority in both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weakness and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment.(p.17, Morrison)"

//Moving In,// Norman Rockwell 1967

“We were sinking under the wisdom, accuracy, and relevance of Maureen’s last words. If she was cute-and if anything could be believed, she was-than we were not. And what did that mean? We were lesser. Nicer, brighter, but still lesser. (p.74, Morrison)”

//The Golden Rule,// Norman Rockwell 1961

“You need to come to the United States to meet Hispanics (my point). What Hispanic immigrants learn within the United States is to view themselves in a new way, as belonging to Latin America entire-precisely at the moment they no longer do. (p.117 Rodriguez)"

“ It is not mere carelessness that makes Americans so careless, it is also that Americans think more about the future than the past. The past is vague to us. Tribal feuds may yet hissle and spit on the stoves of somebody’s memory, but we haven’t got time for that. The entry guard at Ellis Island didn’t have time for that. The INS official at LAX doesn’t have time for that. He is guarding the portal to individualism, the greatest abstraction the world has ever known: One at a time, one at a time-back up, sir! Only America could create Hispanics, Asians, Africans, Americans.(p.120, Rodriguez)"

“She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face. Frieda and she had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn’t join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley. Not because she was cute but because she danced with Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heels.(p.19, Morrison)”

Emma S. Wall 3 Reflection Back