Otherness
... feeling of not belonging to her prominent Asian features and the stereotypes and allusions of her history. “How is one to know and define oneself? From the inside - within a context that is self defined, from a grounding in community and a connection with culture and history that are comfortably accepted? Or from the outside - in terms of messages received from the media and people who are often ignorant” (Noda 397)? In other words, is she an American with ties to a great culture and history, or an outsider who will never blend in? “A voice from my childhood says: ‘You are other. You are less than. You are unalterably alien’” (Noda 398). In Ramon Perez’s “The Fender Bender,” Perez is involved in an automobile accident and is made to feel like an outsider, a foreigner, by someone of his own race. The officer, who is also a Chicano, presumes Perez is to blame because the other individual involved is an Anglo. The officer doesn’t even ask Perez to voice his side of the story. When Perez doesn’t produce a driver’s license the officer replies, “That’s the way these Mexicans are” (Perez 63). Perez is presumed to be a “typical” Mexican because he doesn’t happen to have any identification on him. “If you want, I can take him to jail,” the cop insists. The Anglo turns him down. “If you’d rather, we can report him to Immigration,” the cop continues (Perez 64). Perez is belittled in front of the Anglo so that the officer will be seen as an American rather than a Mexican. In doing this, the officer is also trying to distant himself from the labels of his heritage; he doesn’t give Perez the same opportunity. The officer wants to belong so much, that he will betray one of his own to achieve this feeling of being connected. Frances...
Ratings
by evelinadana