Open Prompt #1

1.      Prompt: 2003, Form B. Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures -- national, regional, ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character's sense of identity into question. Select a novel or play in which a character responds to such a cultural collision. Then write a well-organized essay in which you describe the character's response and explain its relevance to the work as a whole.

It is almost inevitable for a person who has just moved in from a different state or country to have an initial feeling of being out of place. The sense of struggling to fit into an unfamiliar environment and facing certain barriers that culturally collide with what one is use to certainly applies to Young Ju from An Na’s novel, A Step from Heaven. Young Ju experiences such collisions at the mere age of four after moving from her small village in Korea to America, the mysterious paradise-like land she knows as “Mi Gook”. By immigrating to America, Young Ju is placed into a different world where she is required to adapt to not only their poor economic condition and language barrier, but also transform herself into an Americanized young adult which ultimately causes her to lose her sense of self identity.  

After moving to America,Young Ju begins to face many difficulties that hinders her sense of self identity. Because of her family's decision of immigrating while she was at a premature age, Young Ju grows up facing the struggles of trying to combine the Korean cultures at home with the American nationality around her. This factor consumes her young life as she grows up battling her parent's expectations of her being the perfect "Mi Gook" girl and the pressures of still remembering the country of which she came from. Young Ju's conflicting ideas of conforming to the American culture while still holding on to her Korean roots causes her to become bewildered of her self identity.

Young Ju's ethnicity also plays a large role into her family's economic decision. Due to the fact that she belongs to an immigrant family, Young Ju is forced to face hard experiences that ultimately cause her to question her depiction of herself and her culture. Young Ju's family is placed under hard economic situations which not only causes her to become embarrassed of her own heritage but also   holds her back from progressing in accepting the new world around her. Young Ju so ashamed of her family's condition that she begins to isolate herself from making any new friends while creating lies in order to cover up the truth. Young Ju's loneliness and lack of confidence in America only causes her to become more lost within herself and skews her depiction of who she truly is. 

 The experience that Young Ju undergoes after immigrating to America was not only a cultural collision, but also one of the main causes of Young Ju's obscure sense in self identity. The changes in which Young Ju encounters causes her to grow and mature much quicker than normal and ultimately places so much responsibility on her shoulders that she is left to make a decision that will change the rest of her life. Although Young Ju's life after immigration caused her sense of self identity to become skewed and became increasingly difficult for her and her family, she was able to face the hardships which ultimately caused her to become a stronger and more ambitious young woman.