Brief Summary and Comment on the Structure of
Elizabeth Wong’s Autobiographical Essay
Immigrants to the U.S. have various ideas about inculcating in their children the knowledge of their native culture and heritage language (the parents’ first language and that of their ancestors). Some immigrants believe that their children should focus on mastering only the English language and should strive to fitinto mainstream American culture, no matter what their heritage language and the culture of the parents and grandparents might be. Others feel that their children, while they are young, should be exposed to the parents’ and grandparents’ culture and learn the heritage language.
Elizabeth Wong, in “The Struggle to Be an All American Girl”, writes about her parents’ efforts, despite her resistance, to get her to learn the Chinese language at a special school when she was growing up in California. Much of the essay is about Wong’s rebellion against going to the school and her and her brother’s intense dislike of theirheritagelanguage and traditional Chinese culture. Only a few lines at the end let the reader see her own view has changed, now that she is an adult (30-31).
That structure is risky, and it may lead some readers to infer that she is sorrowful that she is “still” Chinese, despite her efforts to become “multicultural,” the current, popular viewof what it means to be “American” (Wong 30-31).But a careful consideration of her use of pronouns, among other cues, will show the reader that Wong is unhappy that she has passed up the chance to know more about her heritage language and her family’sculture. Now, as an adult, she regrets what she missed and she seems to feel her identity is diluted.
Comment: The introduction is an overview of the subject. The second paragraph summarizes Wong’s essay as one example of what is mentioned in the introduction, and thusher essay must be cited, even though nothing is quoted. The third paragraph is an interpretation which quotes some key terms and paraphrases other parts. Thus, it too must have a citation.
Works Cited
Wong, Elizabeth. “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl.” Ed. Stephen Reid. The
Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers. UpperSaddleRiver, N.J: Pearson Hall,
2008. 30-31.
About format: In a ‘real’ essay all of this would be double-spaced, including the citation at the end, which would be on a separate page.
Remember that you must cite a source whether you quote directly or paraphrase or summarize. Ideas and information taken from another source must be cited carefully in your essays. Paraphrase should be all in your own words except for proper nouns. Beware especially of using the same words (or variations of words) in the same grammatical structure, even if other words in the sentence are changed. That is a type of plagiarism, even if you cite the source.