How does assimilating into a new culture get mixed into an immigrant’s old one? Should there be limits to how much an immigrant assimilates?
For example…
In Private Label by Kelly Yang focuses on two Chinese immigrants Serene and Lian. Serene is fully assimilated, whereas Lian has more recently immigrated to Southern California. Lian’s mother is pushing him very hard in academics while he wants to pursue stand-up comedy. To help with this he creates his own after school book club. Lian is also struggling with assimilating and feeling discriminated against, even down to how people pronounce his name. Serene’s mother has pancreatic cancer, and is trying to connect more about her father throughout this process. Meanwhile her boyfriend, Cameron, is pressuring her to pursue things in their relationship she might not be fully ready for. “‘Ugh, that sucks. Just because you’re Chinese, she's making you join it?’ Quinn adds, ‘that’s terrible, I mean, you're not that Chinese.’” (Lee 116) is an example on how Serene is assimilated and how her culture does not does not directly apply to the one she is in.
In “What marrying an immigrant taught me about cultural bias” by Kyle Quinn it talks about how an American man and his Brazilian wife are discriminated against in a trip to the BMV. The attendant refuses to help them upon seeing her temporary green card, but then agrees to help them after he shows he’s an American citizen, “This cultural bias that's exhibited towards her is culturally insensitive comments. They don't come from a place of concern about who Isabel is as a woman, her values, her morals, her ethical framework. They come simply from a place of concern that she's not from here to no fault of her own…” (Quinn)
Both the main characters and some of the minor characters are being pressured to not pursue their values, rather than be their authentic selves.
