An Immigrants split personality
Thesis statement:
The three main problems in children growing up with two cultures are Uniculturism vs. multiculturism, Psychological stress in children, and relationship with distant family.This is clearly depicted from An Immigrants split personality novel by Kyung Yi.
Body
Adapting two cultures can be a problematic .For instance, the protagonist in the novel has dual citizens she migrated to Canada from Korea, having stayed in Canada for 16 years(Yi,2012).She able to see the difference between the two cultures; she expresses her culture cannot be multicultural due to cultural schizophrenia. She is an Independent woman; the protagonist cannot allow other people to define herself whether to be a Korean or Canadian. She is truck on the two cultures .” The hyphenated Canadian personifies the ideal of multiculturalism, but unless the host culture and the immigrant cultures find ways to merge their distinct identities, sharing the best of both, this cultural schizophrenia will continue.” (Yi,2012).
Psychological stress is faced by children. Parental expectation children might have some issue also they can get harassment in school because they are different from their peers. Concerning their personality, it can also be a stressful experience, since they may not have the courage to meet their own goals, for instance. Sun Kyung Yi describes a flashback of the life she had at childhood, the games she played, but she has undergone through cultural change, as she was getting into adulthood, she is in a transition to get into the Korean culture, though she has been influenced by Canadian literature, she is facing exposition and rising action as she faces the new reality and her living life has been hyphenated “An immigrant has to embrace the new culture to enjoy and benefit from what it has to over”. (359).
Furthermore, the relationship with the extended family would also be another main reason for growing up children with two cultures. In extended families, children might feel that they are far from their birth parents. Immigrants indeed face the absence of back home family’s love and care. This might affect ones live as they stay I a home away from home. Immigrants may fear that they will not receive adequate care like they used to get from their family members(Yi,2012).For example, Kyung is facing dominant conflicts since he had a dual identity she is not accepted by other Korean in Canada; they think about her being stereotypical on the way she observes the Korean. “Koreans and Canadians just can’t seem to merge into “us” and “we” (Kyung). As a result, she felt like moving from home and was able to relax from constraints of his cultural conditions up to the time she could be a submissive daughter(Neufeld, 2012).While Kyung was working in Korean company she had the most frustrating part of her life, she could see the barriers between the two cultures “It was difficult to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance when she was regarded as one of them’.” (Arredondo-Dowd, 2011).
Conclusion
In conclusion, culturism, physiological stress, and relationship; all of these three are the main problems that a child needs to face while growing up with two different cultures. The author urges that there is a need for allowing the multiculturalism and the immigrants to embrace the culture they are willing to get integrated.