21 June 2010

I really enjoyed viewing these stories one right after the other for I felt it allowed good insight into each story, though about similar topics they each seem to have their own flow and idea. I noticed many similarities and differences between the two stories but for the sake of making this blog bearable to read, I have decided to allow my focus just to stay with one similarity and one difference, what I found to be most compelling and interesting.

The most interesting similarity I could find between the stories was this idea of being stared at. Each story describes very early on in the narrative a sense of being watched and judged, and definitely in a very public way. From The School Days of an Indian Girl, the young girl on the train recalls this feeling, "Sometimes they took their forefingers out of their mouths and pointed at my moccasined feet. Their mothers, instead of reproving such rude curiosity, looked closely at me, and attracted their children's further notice to my blanket." I feel this sort of inspection is so blatant and intentional, that as a child to feel this on display must be an awful feeling. A similar idea of being watched is portrayed in Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian, "She turns me around and scans me curiously from head to foot. Then the two women whisper together." While I feel each text is conveying a sense of being watched and stared at, I feel the latter text is less blatant than the first, as if almost more of a secretive and "behind the back" sort of viewing of the child.

I think an interesting difference in the stories is the way in which each of the girls view their own race. In The School Days of an Indian Girl, it is quite obvious that the girl feels very secure in her race and she is highly aware and knows exactly who she is and where she comes from. She seems to have embraced all of the traditions and understands much about her cultural background. I got a huge sense of this when the girl describes her hair being cut off and she equates that with a loss of her spirit. I feel in this moment the young girl, who was once so secure in her skin feels a new loss of identity. I feel this is a different experience from the girl in Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian, where the young girl seems to not understand what her race is for her mother is Chinese and her father is English. She seems to have a sort of inner struggle with what her background and cultural traditions are, "Papa is English, mamma is Chinese. Why couldn't we have been either one thing or the other?" I feel in this story, the young girl grows into her identity and finds herself gradually through her cultural background. This story seems to be more of a process.