Andy Wilson

American Heritage and Fish Cheeks

The U.S. is a nation founded by immigrants and its culture has been

affected by them many times over the past two centuries. Every group of people that has

come to the U.S. has affected our culture and made it the way it is today. Early English

settlers formed the bases of our culture with influences from Native Americans. In the

mid to late 19th century waves of immigrants poured into America from all over Europe

and Asia, these people brought with them much of their culture and beliefs. As these

poor immigrants interacted with one another in the slums of booming industrial cities a

“melting pot” affect took place. In this melting pot, these different cultures mixed

together to form one new American culture.

As an adolescent immigrant living in the U.S., Amy Tan struggled with

two very different ideas about the extent of assimilation to which immigrants should

expose themselves to in their new country. On one hand she dealt with the idea that all

immigrants should abandon their old beliefs and customs, and completely adopt the

culture of their new nation in order to fit in. On the other hand she had her parents who

were more inclined to believe that she should be proud of her culture because that is part

of who she is.

 When Amy’s mother gives her the miniskirt and says, “You want to be the

same as American girls on the outside but inside you must always be Chinese. You must

be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame,”(93) she doesn’t know it at

that moment but she eventually realizes that should be proud of her culture and learn to

incorporate it into her life not be ashamed of her culture and abandon it. It is the

combination of these different cultures and peoples that makes the U.S. great.

Work cited

Amy Tan, Fish Cheeks, The Bedford Reader

Ed. X.J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron

8th ed. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2002, 92-93