Alex Tizon

Author Alex Tizon is a Filipino born American author who is known for his work as an author, a journalist, for being the Seattle bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, and for winning the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. Tizon currently teaches at the University of Oregon School of Journalism. His most well known work, Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self, is where the excerpt, Land of the Giants, was taken. Land of the Giants focuses on Tizon’s own life and the struggles and adversities that he as well as his family had to deal with when they moved to the United States from the Philippines, when Tizon himself was merely four years old. Other examples of not being able to fit the status quo can be seen in Ted Talks given
However, they did not let the fact that they didn’t fit in define them or change the way they lived their everyday lives. Ron West for instance gave a Ted Talk in April of 2016 titled, Finding The Courage to Be Yourself. Ron was bullied as a child because of his physical appearance that made him stand out from the crowd. Finally Ron stood up to his bully and although it had not gone the way that he had hoped, his courage kept him from being bullied from then on. Harold Hillman on the other hand, did not have as happy of an ending. Harold was a gay man in the military before it was acceptable to be open about one’s sexuality in the armed forces. In Harold’s Ted Talk titled, Should you fit in or stand out? Finding your authentic voice, he speaks about how he had to hide who he really was and how it took a toll on his life. Then there is Rokhaya Diallo, who struggled to fit in and find a place while growing up as a young black girl in France. In her Ted Talk, Don't try to fit in: make the world embrace who you are, Rokhaya Diallo explains how she struggled on two fronts, being both black and female, but she would not let this get her down or keep her from accomplishing anything she wanted to
However, in his excerpt Tizon is not looking for pity or complaining about racism, which is somewhat of the feeling obtained while listening to Diallo’s presentation. Instead he is merely telling the story of being someone who does not fit the status quo and what it’s like to constantly try to fit in and to constantly want to change oneself for the sake or satisfaction of others. Likewise the Ted Talks can also be directly related to the way that the characters in The Breakfast Club felt. Even though the reasons that they didn’t fit in didn’t really have much to do with race or sexuality, each of them still possessed their own personal characteristics that kept them from having a relationship with the others that were stuck in detention that day. All of these films or videos also provide the realization, it doesn’t matter what characteristics someone possesses, it is next to impossible to ever fit in with everyone, or in every