The Struggle to Be an All American Girl, by Elizabeth Wong It's still there, the Chinese school on Yale Street where my brother and I used to go. Despite the new coat of paint and the high wire fence, the school I knew 10 years ago remains remarkably, stoically the same. Every day at 5 P.M., instead of playing with our fourth and fth grade friends or sneaking out to the empty lot to hunt ghosts and animal bones, my brother and I had to go to Chinese school. No amount of kicking, screaming, or pleading could dissuade my mother, who was solidly determined to have us learn the language or our heritage. Forcibly, she walked us the seven long, hilly blocks from our home to school, deposing our deant tearful faces before the stern principal. My only memory of him is that he swayed on his heels like a palm tree, and he always clasped his impatient twitching hands behind his back. I recognized him as a repressed maniacal child killer, and knew that if we ever saw his hands we would be in big trouble. We all sat in little chairs in an empty auditorium. The room smelled like Chinese medicine, an important faraway mustiness. Like ancient mothballs or dirty closets. I hated that smell. I favored crisp new scents. Like the soft French perfume that my American teacher wore in public school. There was a stage far to the right, anked by an American ag and the ag of the Nationalist Republic of China, which was also red, white and blue but not as pretty. Although the emphasis at the school was mainly language - speaking, reading, and writing - the lessons always began with an exercise in politeness. With the entrance of the teacher, the best student would tap a bell and everyone would get up, kowtow, and chant, "Sing san ho," the phonetic for "How are you, teacher?" Being ten years old, I had better things to learn than ideographs copied painstakingly in lines that ran right to left from the tip of a mac but, a real ink pen that had to be held in an awkward way if blotches were to be avoided. After all, I could do the multiplication tables, name the satellites of Mars, and write reports on \"Little Women" and "Black Beauty. " Nancy Drew, my favorite book heroine, never spoke Chinese. The language was a source of embarrassment. More times than not, I had tried to disassociate myself from the nagging loud voice that followed me wherever I wandered in the nearby American supermarket outside Chinatown. The voice belonged to my grandmother, a fragile woman in her seventies who could outshout the best of the street vendors. Her humor was raunchy, her Chinese rhythmless, patternless. It was quick, it was loud, and it was unbeautiful. It was not like the quiet, lilting romance of French or the gentle renement of the American South. Chinese sounded pedestrian. Public. In Chinatown, the comings and goings of hundreds of Chinese on their daily tasks sounded chaotic and frenzied. I did not want to be thought of as mad, as talking gibberish. WhenI spoke English, people nodded at me, smiled sweetly, and said encouraging words. Even the people in my culture would cluck and say that I would do well in life. " My, doesn't she move her lips fast," they would say, meaning that I would be able to keep up with the world outside Chinatown. My brother was even more fanatical than I about speaking English. He was especially hard on my mother, criticizing her, often cruelly, for her pidgin speech-smatterings of Chinese scattered like chop suey in her conversation. "It's not ' what it is,I Mom," he would say in exasperation. " It is " What is it, what is it, what is it!" Sometimes Mom might leave out an occasional "the" or "a" or perhaps a verb of being. He would stop her in mid-sentence: "Say it again, Mom. Say it right." When he tripped over his own tongue, he'd blame it on her. " See, Mom, it is all your fault. You set a bad example." What infuriated my mother was when my brother cornered her on her consonants, especially "r." My father had played a cruel joke on Mom by assigning her an American name that her tongue would not allow her to say. No matter how hard she tried, "Ruth" always ended up "Luth" or "Roof.\" After two years of writing with a mac but and reciting words with multiples of meanings, I nally was granted a cultural divorce. I was permitted to stop Chinese school. I though of myself as multicultural. I preferred tacos to egg rolls; I enjoyed Cinco de Mayo more than Chinese New Year. At last I was one of you; I was not one of them. Sadly, I still am. Narrative Essay Outline A narrative is a spoken or written account of a series of connected events. People use personal narratives whenever they tell what happened. You will be telling this story as if you are a character other than the narrator from one of the reading selections in this unit. Introduction - Which storylcharacter will you use? Introduce "yourself" as the I will be telling the story from the perspective of the brother mentioned in " The character Struggle to Be an AllAmerican Girl" by Elizabeth Wong Describe settingfmain topic of Ayoung Chinese girl who lives in the suburbs of America is the focus of the StOW narrative. Her mother makes her and her brother go to a school where they are forced to learn the language through the process of acculturation in order for them to accept the Chinese culture. Compose main idea of \"your As the younger brother, I often found myself in the same predicament as my sister, side\" of the story {thesisstyle, being forced to attend Chinese school despite our protests. last sentence of intro] Body Palaglaph 1 What happens at the beginning the setting of the Chinese school where my sister and lwere forced to attend. of the story? What are "your" thoughts and I will explain how lfelt about having to attend Chinese school instead of playing feelings? with our friends or exploring the neighborhood. Body Palaglaph 2 What happens in the middle of Describe my relationship with my mother and her determination for us to learn the story? Chinese. What are "your" thoughts and Provide an example of how I criticized my motherfor her pidgin speech and howl feelings? corrected her English. Body Paragraph 3 What happens at the end of the Explain my reasoning for wanting to distance myself from my Chinese heritage and story? language. What are "your" thoughts and Describe my preference for American culture and how it made me feel more feelings? accepted in society. Conclusion List at least one thing r'you" Reflect on how my views on Chinese culture and language have changed since I learned from this experience was achild. What advice would n'you" give to Discuss the importance of cultural identity and preserving one's heritage, even if it other characters in the story? means embracing a language or culture that may be different from the dominant cultu re