Being American Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Being American - Essay Example The author intends that the readers understand about the American identity of American residents. Most of them are from diverse lands and their parents or grandparents have immigrated to America after which, America has taken its current form. Belonging to a diverse cultural background, I can relate to the poem. ‘To the Lady’ is composed by Mitsuye Yamada. She expresses anger towards Japanese Americans and other Americans’ silence when Japanese Americans were captured in war camps. She as a Japanese American represents the voice of her people. She talks about a report in San Francisco by a lady which â€Å"why did the Japanese Americans let the government put them in those camps without protest?† (Yamada 523)and shows her reaction about the pride of American people and existent discrimination on the land.She uses the sentences â€Å"social order moral order internal order† (Yamada 523) to show discrimination in America. She uses the symbols of war in the poem such as ‘bombed’, ‘self-immolation’ and ‘six million’ indicating towards killing of Jewish people. She further refers to the famous incident of murder of ‘Kitty Genovese’ who got murdered on street.Being an American, every happening can be related to us. ‘Facing It’ is written by YusefKomunyakaa who is an African American ethnically. Komunyakaa connects his experience of being Black with the memorial of Vietnam War. The poet is standing in front of the Vietnam memorial reading names of people and finding his own. He sees his reflection in the memorial and considers that the difference between the memorial and him is that of stone and flesh. He can feel the pain of his history while the memorial cannot. He says, "My black face fades,/hiding inside the black granite" (Komunyakaa 525) showing his connectivity with the memorial. He also refers to a name, ‘Andrew Johnson’ written on the

Utopia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Utopia - Essay Example The term was introduced by Thomas Moore, who invented the term to describe his imaginary Island where the inhabitants of the island enjoy the perfect social, legal and political system. An Island, where nothing is amiss, nothing is wrong and people lead what we can call a â€Å"Utopian or flawless† form of life. In modern Latin, â€Å"utopia† means â€Å"nowhere†. As years passed by, Thomas Moore’s famous word became an adjective to be used to describe not just his island but any state of perfectness. In the lives that we live every day, from the moment we learn about the terms â€Å"happiness† or â€Å"flawless† we start on a journey to pursue them and turn our own little lives into something that we consider blessed. But, the truth is no one is ever really happy or satisfied. I am not saying it s a crime to be not or dissatisfied but the fact is that Thomas Moore’s word â€Å"utopia† has little space in our lives. â€Å"Richa rd Cory† a short, narrative and meaningful poem that I came across, vindicates my argument substantially. He was gracious, generous, well schooled and wealthy yet at the end of the poem he ends up shooting himself in the head. Herein, we see that even though Richard Cory had all the materialistic possessions that a person needs for his survival, he was not satisfied and his life was not worth living at all. At first it seems almost necessary to describe Mr. Cory’s life as a Utopian life since everything seemed so perfect yet the end of his story makes us think otherwise- How can the term Utopia be used for a state that is nonexistent?