Rawlings 1

Emmalie Rawlings

English 1050

Stephanie Maenhardt

4 July 2018

The Destruction and Regrowth of Discrimination and Prejudices in America

Imagine, a young woman with black hair and small eyes. She is scared, homesick, and

excited for what the future holds. She is finally on her way to America. She told her family and

friends goodbye as she paid for her ticket with the only money she has left and stepped onto the

boat that led to a beacon of hope, success, and freedom. She grew sea sick throughout the days

and was relieved to step foot onto Angel Island, but everything there wasn’t as promising as it

had seemed just a few months ago. She was all alone and subject to cramped living spaces,

interrogations, and was kept there for days without an explanation. This was the reality of nearly

175,000 Chinese immigrants that passed through Angel Island in the 30 years of its operation.

(About Angel Island) . We look back on the experiences of immigrants and apologize profusely

for what we have done to them, but we don’t realize the ways we are doing it now. It is

instinctual for us to have prejudices and discriminate towards others. Anything or anyone that we

have not had experience with is considered “different” and “bad”. We create a negative

connection to them, their language, or their country of heritage simply because they are unlike

us. Humans tend to cultivate a community and if anything seemingly intrudes on that

community, it is a risk. That is what has happened in the past with African Americans rights,

Women's Rights, and now, LGBTQ rights. Diversity is something that has proudly been put on

the front line of America for hundreds of years, but that title has been dragged through a lot of
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rough patches. Americans needs to recognize that the title of Diversity cannot be kept without an

acceptance and celebration of the same differences that we seemingly represent.

Throughout the history of this country we have learned a lot about immigration and the

big role that it plays in our everyday lives, but we have also learned about some of the negative

consequences of it. When the founding fathers first established this country they recognized the

cultural ambiguity of it and attested to help these immigrants by including freedom of religion,

expression, and speech. Of course, these things influence everyone but they can specifically be a

great pull for immigrants to come to America. It has become an increasingly popular thought that

immigration needs to be more seriously controlled or stopped completely. The people who are

coming to America are similar to those who came in the past; they simply want a better life for

themselves and have the hopes and dreams of achieving some sort of success in America. The

diversity in immigrants means change in communities and in individuals and has been a huge

influence in the development of America. Whenever someone travels or lives in a different area

they bring new traditions, cultures and thought processes with them.

Immigration has been seen as a great problem the last few years but seeing the

perspective of it in the past vs the perception of it now is incredibly interesting. The article titled,

“We Are All Third Generation”, brings up great points of how immigrants change generation by

generation. The author considers the fact of how we are all “third generation”, that we are all

immigrants. Another student summarized this article well by saying that, “First generation

chooses between freedom and what they see as slavery. Second generation is a combination of

contempt and avoidance for the old world. This creates third generation in which success is

expected and they feel very little respect for the past. (Amanda Pope, Week 2).” Our cultures all

change and develop over time but it has become very common for people of the third generation
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to not recognize greatness of their diversity. Culture is lost in people as they come to America

because even though it is a melting pot of diversity, it also melts away cultural traditions.

We as a society have adapted to a great amount but even if the diversity has been

accepted as a whole, the individual needs to recognize it as well. Somehow as people have been

focusing on diversity and acceptance we have created more barriers and more and more

discrimination. Diversity is something that should be celebrated, especially in a country that puts

such a great focus on it. Instead, some Americans have the same thought process of those before

and during World War 1 and see different as something that needs to be fixed. The Eugenics

movement became very popular during this time and it has similar thinking of some of these

Anti-Diversity Americans. We have made great strides in our treatment of those with disabilities

but a select few will continue to tear down their rights. Women have gained their equal rights

and have created a force of “Feminism” to make sure that they will remain that way in the future

because someone will always try and take it away from them, and they will be ready. We used to

treat anyone that was different than us, that held different beliefs, had a different first language,

and a different culture some sort of disease while really their life here is the essence of the

“American Dream”.

The article, “More Than Just A Shrine” was first published in print on November 3rd,

1985 in The New York Times paper and was a wakeup call for many Americans. Similar to the

thoughts of “We Are All The Third Generation”, Mary Gordon discusses the assumptions we

make about diversity and also the forgetfulness we have about the past of immigrants. Often we

think about the past as a blocked off, boarded up piece of our lives but it plays a great deal of

influence in who we are and why we are where we are today. We don’t realize how this history

can so easily be repeated if not considered. Mary Gordon considers the changes of diversity as
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she says, “But as the century progressed, the economy worsened, eugenics became both

scientifically respectable and popular and World War I made American xenophobia seem rooted

in fact (Gordon).”

Americans don’t seem to see these past mistakes as guidelines of what not to do in the

future, instead they take those thought process and that discrimination and carry it with them into

the future. Despite all the difficulties of immigrants a great difficulty found is the prejudice that

resides in Americans hearts when they arrive here. Many equate their level of intelligence with

their communication ability, which still needs to be improved since coming to a new country.

Education for immigrants is a great trial on children because the children are expected to learn

how to read and write in English, their second language, when they can’t even accomplish that in

their first language. Our prejudices and discriminations become very apparent when we break

people down simply because they have “broken English”. The opinions and emotions of “broken

english” is captured very well in the article “Mother Tongue”, by Amy Tan. “I am ashamed that I

am just now recognizing this bias. Hearing someone struggle with language, in ways, made me

think they struggled with intelligence. Not so. “Broken” English is definitely an unfair term. It

now feels like a derogatory term. When, in reality, speaking more than one language, requires

higher skills and intelligence. (Kimberlie McDaniel, Week 3).” Another powerful perspective of

diversity is from the article, “How to Tame A Wild Tongue”, she gives a very interesting

perspective of those who speak ESL by including different languages throughout her piece.

Immigrants come to America for hope and success but instead are face with comments such as

this, “If you want to be American, speak ‘American’. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico

where you belong (Anzaldua).”

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Americans need to realize that this country has been founded on Diversity and

Immigration. Diversity is something that cannot be kept without an acceptance and celebration of

the differences that make up our history and our uniqueness. We as a country have developed to

an amount that discrimination and prejudices should not be as popular as they are. It is human

nature to feel at risk with those that we do not understand or seemingly not have things in

common with. If Americans reach out of the comfort zone of discrimination and try to break

down barriers, great changes can happen in the future. Americans say that they are accepting of

everyone while the actions of the people do not follow suite. Prejudices start with the individual

and can change with one step into acceptance of differences and diversity.
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Revisit the Past as a Consideration for the Future

We have all felt a little outcasted and different. Sometimes it might be because of how we

dress or speak; the languages we use. Mary Gordon's’ article, “More Than Just a Shrine”,

explores the meaning of our differences and the importance of embracing them. This article was

first published in The New York Times Magazine in print November 3, 1985. Gordon seems to

be writing this article not in a form of persuasion but purely to inform and to motivate the

audience. As she mentions he own personal experiences the reader understands that she

understands the struggles of what she is discussing, giving the author more credibility for the

future points.

As she tells of her experience of visiting Ellis Island the reader can understand through

tone the emotions that she is feeling. Gordon relies a great amount on Ethos and Pathos by

describing in detail the pain and struggles of the past and how it felt to be visiting a place that

played such a big role in her ancestors lives. When she does include logos, with facts or statistics

about Ellis Island or the Immigrants that passed through it, she uses the factuality of something

and continues on with it into logos and pathos.

In some ways even Gordons sentences are organized in such a way to make us think more

deeply and emotionally about the topic. Each paragraph begins with a experience of Ellis Island

and then continues with emotions of it, and tends to end with a link to her and the past and us and

this history. Using the ending paragraph as connection between the first is very important

because it gives the readers a sense of closure of Ellis Island. Gordon uses her last words to give

inspiration to how we should remember the people of the past and recommit to not have it

happen again in the future. He powerful experiences throughout the paper left you with a real

understanding of the pain the immigrants must have felt while coming to America. Her use of
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Logos gave more definition and context to the pathos and ethos and drew on the readers

empathetic characteristics greatly.

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Work Cited

“About Angel Island.” Gwendolyn Bennett's Life and Career,

www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/angel/about.htm.

Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.”

https://www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-W

ld-Tongue.pdf

Gordon, Mary. “MORE THAN JUST A SHRINE.” The New York Times, The New York Times,

3 Nov. 1985, www.nytimes.com/1985/11/03/magazine/more-than-just-a-shrine.html.

McDaniel, Kimberlie. “Week 3 Discussion Response.” 25 June. 2018,

https://slcc.instructure.com/courses/457546/discussion_topics/2458666?module_item_id

=7325859.

Mead, Margaret. “We Are All Third Generation.”

file:///C:/Users/Little%20Lady/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8we

yb3d8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/We%20Are%20All%20Third%20Generartion%20by

%20Margaret%20Mead%20(1).pdf

Pope, Amanda. “Week 2 Discussion Response.” 16 June 2018,

https://slcc.instructure.com/courses/457546/discussion_topics/2458664.