“Proud to be an American

There are around 320 million people of all different backgrounds and races that call the United States of America home. A majority of the people that live in the United States are of European descent, basically white people. By the law to be considered an American someone must have been born in the United States or be able to attain citizenship. Most people never question the legitimacy of a white person living in the United States but when it comes to many of the minorities their status is frequently questioned. In the stories, by Charles Chesnutt, Luis Valdez, and Gene Luen Yang respectively, “The Wife of His Youth”, Soldado Razo, and American Born Chinese, each author is considered a minority and within their stories they demonstrate what it means to be an American. In a country run by white Americans it has always been difficult for other people to be able to fit the mold of a white man’s world. 

Charles Chesnutt as a black man in America was able to describe the experiences of struggling identity against a white America accurately. Chesnutt utilizes Mr. Ryder’s mixed complexion to show the disconnect between each of his identities: “While he was not as white as some of the Blue Veins his appearance was such as to confer distinction upon them”(Chesnutt 143). Mr.Ryder’s appearance neither classifies him as neither white nor black because his features can pass for white but his skin tone classifies him as a black man. The pressure that the Blue Vein Society and American society puts on people of mixed race is astronomical. Mr. Ryder struggles with his identity by trying to fit into a white man’s America and in doing so forgets his black identity and past. Chesnutt comments on the struggle of identity, “ Suppose, even,  that he had qualified himself, by industry, by thrift, and by study, to win the friendship and be considered worthy the society of such people I see around me to-night” (Chesnutt 149). This phrase encompasses the whole struggle that many people face to “be considered worthy”, people are always willing to give everything for that. Ryder almost gave up on his black identity and heritage completely, to be considered worthy to society, to be considered more white.

Luis Valdez as a Chicano man knows many of the struggles that Charles Chesnutt had to overcome although they are two different races, in two different times, separated by almost 50 years. In Soldado Razo, Valdez uses Johnny to show the brutality of war and the way that young soldiers were treated by their country. Johnny, a freshly 18 year old Mexican boy, was sent to the frontlines of the Vietnam war to die for his country. Death tells the audience about Johnny’s thoughts, “ So Johnny left for Vietnam, never to return. He didn’t want to go and yet he did. It never crossed his mind to refuse. How can he refuse the gobierno de los estados unidos? How can he refuse his family?” (Valdez 262). Johnny was drafted to go to war with no choice on whether he wanted to go or not. Refusing the United States government could have been a penalty worse than death, and refusing his family would mean bringing shame to the family. Johnny going to the military raised not only his own status but his family’s because of the “responsibility” that Johnny now has magically gained; refusing to go to war meant refusing his family’s possibility of  climbing the social ladder. HAs much as his family and Johnny believed that this was a best case scenario, but the United States couldn’t care less about them. The treatment of Johnny after his death shows the government’s true colors, “ His body lay in the field for two days and then it was taken to the beach and placed in a freezer, a converted portable food locker. Two weeks later he was shipped home for burial”( Valdez 263). Valdez pointing out that the freezer was a food locker was deliberate in showing how much the United States cared for their minorities and soldiers. These men who gave their lives are nothing more than cattle to the slaughter, thrown away, forgotten and unimportant to the United States. Johnny, a young Mexican soldier, is forgotten in a food locker to be sent home, after 16 days from his death, to his family as a present for their social aptitude instead of a dignified hero. Valdez uses Johnny’s death to demonstrate the little importance the life of a minority means to the United States.

Gene Luen Yang in American Born Chinese shows a similar situation that the previous two authors faced in their lifetimes. Yang’s story takes place in a more modern time, written 15 years ago, yet still follows the same struggles of two previous characters, a minority forced to change to fit within white America. Yang uses Jin and the perming of his hair on page 97 to show the beginning of his transformation and how Jin believes that to be with a girl he likes that he must have a white hairstyle. Yang follows this transformation on pages 193 to 197 showing Jin’s transformation to a white teenager ,Danny. Jin wishes for this change after striking out with Amelia, making poor choices with Suzy and losing his best friend Wei-Chen because he believes the root of his problems are being a Chinese teenager in a white centered world. The Monkey King sums up Jin’s struggles with his identity,” You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years of imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey” (Yang 223). The Monkey King became something he wasn’t to try and fit what the other gods were deeming right and acceptable, just like Jin and society. The Monkey King and Jin both were pained more by trying to make those molds and trying to become something they weren’t; Jin lost his friends, the monkey King was trapped for 500 years, and both of them lost their identity. Yang is telling the reader, through the Monkey King, that there is only more suffering when you try to stop being who you truly are; pretending to be something else only causes yourself and everyone close to you more pain. It is more freeing to the soul and mind to realize how good it is to be who you are. 

In these stories, by Charles Chesnutt, Luis Valdez, and Gene Luen Yang respectively, “The Wife of His Youth”, Soldado Razo, and American Born Chinese, their stories demonstrate what it means to be an American. Each author has the same issues resonate through their characters, the need of belonging and fitting to white America. All of these characters are legally American but no one in the United States is really an American. What fun is there in being confined to one group of people, being controlled and manipulated by everything and everyone around you. Why be an American when you can be you?”

This is the final essay that I wrote for my english class, Who and What is an American? I worked on this essay for a good month trying to figure out how to word it and make it flow well, especially because it was going to be worth 25% of my grade and I really wanted an A in this class. Over the course of the class we worked on writing stronger body paragraphs that would be in an essay, and each time my writing got better. By the end of the semester I used what I learned to help make this essay the best that I could. I was more than surprised when I got my grade on the paper, I thought I was going to get a mid to high 80 on it. Professor Tuttle sent the paper back to me with a 99 as the grade and I was shellshocked. I am proud that I was able to get a grade like that and to date it is the best grade I have gotten on an essay.