C. Johnson: 6.9.10

When I was growing up: I really appreciated the honesty that Neille Wong displays in “When I was Growing Up.” I feel that many people have feelings similar to hers pertaining to their own situations, but rarely let them outside of their own mind. Today’s American culture has caused us to develop a type of ideal beauty that is unattainable for the majority of women, especially those of ethnic backgrounds. Wong writes, “I read magazines and saw movies, blonde movie stars, white skin, sensuous lips.” Growing up, Wong and other girls were surrounded by images of white females installing the idea that white was “right” and “American.” Wong says, “I hungered for American food, American styles coded: white…being Chinese was feeling foreign, was limiting, was un-American.” It is a sad that our culture gives the idea that American is simultaneous with white, when in truth American can be a number of things and that is what is beautiful.
The Thirty Eighth Year: While reading this poem I began to develop a sense of fear; what if my own life is just ordinary? Everyone has big plans of who they think they will become later on in life, but what if they don’t come true? Will I feel that I have failed, or will I be able to embrace whatever it is that I have become. Clifton writes “I had expected to be smaller than this, more beautiful…more confident, I had expected more than this.” Upon reading this I couldn’t help but think of myself and imagine what I would be like as a thirty eight year old woman; would I consider myself to be ordinary? I then realized that no woman or man is ordinary for there is not one widespread idea of what ordinary is. Ordinary to one person can mean something completely different to another. Instead of worrying if I will be satisfied in my thirty eighth year, I hope I will be wise enough to see the positives when I get there.
Ain't I A Woman? : I really enjoyed Sojourner Truth's raw and direct way of speaking. She challenges not only the idea that men are intellectually superior to women, but also the idea that being African American does not make her any less of a woman. However, if women are suppose to be treated in the feeble way that men say, than why would Truth want to be treated as a woman. “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! Ain’t I a woman?” To me Truth seems to be a strong and independent woman and doesn’t need any help over mud-puddles. If being a woman is simultaneous with dependence, then who would want to be treated as a woman?