Mrs. Adichie warns us about how impressionable and vulnerable we are when it comes to stories. Stories tell us things; it helps craft and paint a painting which gives us little glimpse into another culture. When these stories have people that we can’t relate to, we just label them with the traits that are within that story. What she means by the single story is that it becomes “cookie cutter” and one- dimensional. There are no other influences or cultures: just a single narrative of what the world is like.
The danger of the single story gives people a one-track mind when it comes to people of different countries and their nationalities and ethnicities, and those stereotypes are mostly negative, which results in ignorance and xenophobia. She listed in her speech about her former college roommate, despite her speaking the same language and listening to one of the biggest pop/R&B singers of our current generation Mariah Carey, she still felt they couldn’t be similar or equal because she is African. That example itself is why it’s dangerous to hear the single story. Power is very important when it comes to a single story– power can shape and define the story and what stereotypes are enforced because of said story. Despite the author growing up middle-class in Nigeria, she was still plagued with the African stereotypes in America. Her roommate would look down upon her because of the literature of Africa being described as an uncivilized land with roaming beasts and political instability.
She felt compelled because a single story played a key role in her life and her career. Without it, she would be where she is now. Yes, it was very effective, and her TED Talk was enjoyable, yet it brought up questions when it revolves around why we believe a single story. The first thing coming to mind was when Mrs. Adichie mentioned her childhood when she used to create short stories with the main characters being white with blue eyes, despite being around brown people of all different shades. This anecdote made me think about the Clark doll study from the 1940s where the majority of the young black participants who attended segregated schools preferred the white dolls over the black dolls when they were given a choice between the two. Clark listed that the children assigned positive and negative traits to the dolls; and, despite them being black themselves they gave the black dolls a negative trait and white dolls the positive traits.
The time I faced a single story was when I was at work 3 years ago. A co-worker told me that I speak very well and assumed that I was originally from Northern Virginia. She was surprised to hear how well I articulate myself along with the diversity of my vocabulary. I took offense to that because I am a Black man and if I speak “proper” then I am viewed differently compared to other Black Americans. She followed up by saying, “Oh I was expecting you to speak with more slang.” That sentence gave me the confirmation that I already thought. She is Vietnamese and I would have thought she wouldn’t view Black Americans in that light as a fellow POC, but she was born and raised in a very affluent, gated community somewhere in Northern Virginia.
This speech is not only interesting but thought provoking as well. I reflected on my past self when I thought about other cultures outside of my own and reflected on how it is driven by a single story. Especially while in school we’re taught one way and we take that information and form our views on different countries and cultures. We often hear only the “Western” view on other cultures. It’s important to hear the other voices, because if we tune them out, then we will make a terrible mistake when it comes to culture and identity.
WCS Journal 2
I chose “The United Fruit Company” because it really stuck out to me. Hearing from the native Chilean– about his perspective of these Fortune 500 companies coming into his country and leaving it worse off than what it was before– really resonated with me. What stuck out to me was the negatives of capitalism, specifically how the people on the other side of capitalism don’t care because they’re the ones who reap the benefits from the system. The message Neruda illustrates is how foreigners came into his homeland and used it to their advantage while screwing over the natives/indigenous of the land. The juxtaposition of how these companies that come from a land where the motto is freedom and liberty (e.g., the U.S.A.) end up becoming the same tyrants they fought against to gain their freedom.
Additionally, these companies take all of the beauty and resources for their countries while stripping and destabilizing another country to benefit theirs. Ultimately, in the end his country’s economy becomes dependent on crops which is ruled by a private company, and the country becomes indebted to said companies. Yes, this poem is very effective, and it showcases what it is like to be living within a banana republic, with a focus on how people with money and power can bully their way into a country and reap all the resources and leave nothing for those who lived on the land first. I would recommend this poem to others because it’s a piece of history of many other Latin American and Caribbean countries. The poem talks about how they brought over comic operas and circuses, with how the companies decided to bring their own entertainment and how they overshadowed the culture of the land they used for profit.
WCS Journal 3
The message of the play is having a home away from home–, that is to say, taking pieces and elements from the old country and applying it to the new country. The four main characters have some form of homesickness. To feel comfortable in this new land, they need to bring some of the old country to the new land, so they don’t feel alienated. It shows how much their identities are tied to their home culture and without that what would they be. The family dynamic to begin with is pretty toxic to be honest
The husband and wife constantly bicker back and forth; the father hates his youngest son and is in denial to accept him for who is due to the son’s mental defection, while the dad is a mama’s boy, and his mother hates his wife with a passionate because no woman will ever be good enough in her eyes to have her son. Lastly, the oldest son, who is fully assimilated to Australian culture, views his family in disgust for not attempting to assimilate and staying stuck in the past. When it comes to migration, the eldest son is the only one who is happy with Australia and doesn’t have nostalgia when it comes to Uruguay or its history and culture. In his eyes, he is a Uruguayan-Australian and not a Uruguayan living within Australia. He ditched his true identity and culture for Australian culture, while his parents, brother, and grandmother are proud of their culture and heritage and refuse to lose it.
This dynamic is why three of the 4 main characters yell at the mother when she starts to pronounce Uruguayan places in English instead of its native Spanish. They feel she is slowly adopting their current country identity. Since the eldest sees that his family refuses to adapt, he feels like he is much better than them and calls them a racial slur which parallels what people think of foreign immigrants who refuse to assimilate to their culture and beliefs. For the metadrama moment, it would be Jhonny coming into the room and seeing his family roleplaying that they’re at Playa Ramírez and him commenting that they’re doing this again and referencing it as “Third-World therapy,” while the father comments about him bursting the bubble again, which leads to an argument of them listing off important landmarks in Uruguay and Australia.
The Impact of The Puritans and Quaker on Virginia
The Impact of The Puritans and Quaker on Virginia
While England was engaging in the First of the three English Civil Wars, Virginia was engaged in a long political war when it came to the non-Anglican Christian groups– the Puritans and Quakers who lived in a pro-Anglican Virginia. With the First English Civil War taking place, it allowed for people to separate from the Church of England. Once Governor Sir William Berkley made landfall to Virginia during the beginning years of the war, one of the main priorities on his agenda was to keep Virginia an Anglican colony, due to him being a Royalist and not a Roundhead. And as a Royalist, he viewed the Puritans as a serious threat to not only England but also Virginia as well (Hatfield, 2016, p. 39). The Quakers and Puritans both settled by the Eastern Shore, which gave them a significant footing economically, which was something the Governor couldn’t avoid seeing. This allowed both groups to dominate intercolonial and transatlantic trading, and it also allowed for them to mingle and create a route for them to spread their religious beliefs amongst other colonists in order to get more footing into Virginia (Hatfield, 2016, p. 42). The officials created this cultural border to let everyone in Virginia know that “this colony is an Anglican colony” (Hatfield, 2016, p. 42).
In response to their growing power, Anglican officials decided to place political barriers in place to prevent the Quakers and Puritans from using intercolonial trading to prevent consolidating power within their religious communities any further in Virginia (Hatfield, 2016, p. 42). Since both the Quakers and Puritans had leverage due to their control over trading within the Eastern Shore, the Anglican officials had to give in a little. If they decided to completely shut off the Quakers and Puritans, it would ruin the state financially. As the years progressed, Governor Berkely got tired of the New England colonies for continuing to send down more Puritan ministers; therefore, he and the Assembly started to crack down and suppress the Puritans in Virginia, making it harder for them to practice their religion (Hatfield, 2016, p. 45). These actions led to a decrease of Puritans as they migrated north of Virginia, most settling in Maryland or New England with the other Puritan groups (Hatfield, 2016, pp. 45-46). However, a major turning point happened for the Puritans: The Interregnum. This allowed many of the remaining Puritans in Virginia to run for political roles within the colony (Hatfield, 2016, p. 48). With Puritans in political roles, it allowed for their people to flourish even more economically and strengthen their religious network after being repressed for more than a decade (Hatfield, 2016, p. 49).
The impact the Quakers and Puritans had on the colony of Virginia solely came from how much control they had on intercolonial and transatlantic trading and shipping; they were smart to interweave their religion with their trade routes. Not only does that give them the presence, but it gives them more ways to spread their beliefs. The Toleration Act of 1688 gave religious freedom to non-Anglican protestants the right to worship and serve in political roles, and that helped end the restrictions and oppression that Quakers and Puritans faced (Hatfield, 2016, p. 60).
References
Hatfield, A. L. (2016). English atlantic networks and religion in virginia. In M. Whitlock, Remembering the old dominion: Readings on virginia history (1st ed., pp. 39-60). Cognella Academic Publishing.