Book 1 Post 1: American Like Me

As someone who has experienced multiple cultures from a young age, the book "American Like Me" resonated with me the most and gave me a deep dive into the perspective of America. Although I am still in the book's early chapters, I am truly enjoying reading her anecdotes and how she describes her different childhood experiences that shaped her identity as she grew up.

This book compiles many different narratives of immigrant children who grew up being an "outcast" or were often misunderstood. The various anecdotes make this book amplify the voices of these individuals who have experienced far different lives from those who grew up in homogenous cultures and a fixed identity.

America's experience of being involved in vastly different cultures day and night, being a part of the Western culture in school, and returning to her Hispanic household after school is something that resonated with me the most. Although it may seem trivial, constantly switching between two cultures and understanding the social hierarchy at a young age is a difficult process that impacts one's worldview. As I continue the reading, I find it fascinating diving into the mind of a young Latina girl which was written from the perspective of her adult self. It shows the refined and deeply reflected thoughts of America Ferrera and the different connotations behind some of the comments that were thrown at her. 

When we are young, it is difficult to discern whether someone is approaching us with positive or negative intentions if they don't explicitly express it. However, we learn to tell apart between the two after we repeatedly experience the situation. In the book, America describes how her teachers would always leave a comment about her name during attendance at the beginning of the school year, acknowledging how "patriotic" or "American" her name was. At first, America might not have been able to understand that these comments were condescending and jumping to conclusions. However, after learning how dismissive and ignorant these responses were to her heritage, without even considering asking about the meaning behind it, is something that made her realize that it was a culturally offensive statement. 

Repeated instances of such actions are what help us realize the boundary between friendliness and cultural appropriation or racism. There is definitely a fine line between what can come off as amusing vs. offensive, and sometimes it may seem oversensitive. However, I believe it comes from the ability for everyone to withhold their respect, acceptance, and understanding towards others without keeping any preconceived notions about cultures and believing that there is an unspoken hierarchy among ethnic groups. While this is a deep-rooted issue in society that is still a work in progress, I believe books like "American Like Me" are deeply educational and informative to raising awareness about such social issues to the future generation.