Ceremony By Leslie M. Silko Analysis

The next example is one of a protagonist that in some way resembles Wilhelmina, he as well, tries and wants to pull away his cultures and traditions in order to fit in at school. Tayo, in the book Ceremony by Leslie M. Silko is a young man who finds himself in between the coalition of two cultures, his two cultures. Tayo is initiated into the Native American culture and traditions. The distinction here is between the White and the Native American ethnic-race groups. To sum up, one of the takeaways from the novel, is Tayo’s feeling and view on racism. He was once a soldier for the U.S. Army in World War II. Through other characters such as Emo, another Native American young man who had been a soldier, Tayo is able to make reflection on society’s
Throwing it all the way back to the creation of the American Republic, Nell Painter discusses the history of white people in her book The History of White People. It comes from the necessity to group and separate people. “White people are so mixed up,” painter mentions in her book when talking about how white people are in fact a mix of all the European ethnicities which is what caused “the lowering of racial boundaries starting in the nineteen forties where ethnic began replacing race as applied to the descendants of european immigrants” in the United States. As quoted at the very beginning of this document “race is an idea, not a fact.” Moreover, to categorize people by race is just an idea, in fact race is a social construct, just as for example the word feminine and masculine are. Painter brings up a conversation about ethnicities throughout her book where she explores the creation of the concept white race or population, which developed the concept race as separation, even at a time enforced by the law. Had white people ever had to assimilate their identity into a culture? Oppressed or oppressors? That is the main question. That is why we have many conversations about the history of minority groups in the U.S. and lack of conversations about white people. When being the oppressor, even when engaging into a new territory with people living in it, the culture brought is imposed, while when being
And for an individual, there is an existing and unquestionable need to fit into one of those communities and groups. These conversation in the present has changed, since there exists creation of new identities and mix of cultures. As we have been studying through the semester, the proccess of cultural assimilation is not absolute, one can grow up within the American culture maintaining their background culture, hence creating, transforming or adapting original traditions. The development of an identity is becoming more complex and in this society is now more global and open than ever, not only in the U.S. Sandra’s example is based on a real case, my case, and there are many other like these around the world in many countries. Migration usually means going to another place looking forward to improve a socioeconomic status. This creates new generation with multiple heritage, hence multiple new identities such as in the case of the U.S. Mexican American, Asian American, African American, etcetera. Regardless of the difficulties and confusions two culture might create in a second-generation immigrant, the achievements of cultural assimilation of those individuals create a new world view on race, or better said, on ethnicities. The notion of race will continue to evolve into ethnicities and nationalities, hence each and every individual is going to be able to create their own concept of ethnic