Assimilation Through Self-Discovery: The Function Term Paper

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' The hard realization she got from Sherman during their adolescent years, where she had been told that, "You just want to tell everything to your friends. You just want to have a boyfriend to become popular" (21). Saying this, Seth/Sherman made Mona acknowledge that despite her being American, she also seeks to identify herself, in the same way that he tried to assert himself as a Japanese.

Indeed, Seth became Mona's religion, because he helped primarily in shaping her personal philosophy in life. Through Seth, "...she finds that she owns a whole self inside the self that she knows, someone sharing her skin....How common she is! For how else can it be that on early acquaintance, someone can know her so much better than she knows herself?" (109). Through Seth, she realized she can be integrated in her society without trying hard to assimilate herself. In fact, she can easily assimilate in her society just by being herself. Seth's abandon of society's norms and pursuing instead what he wants and believes in made him feel comfortable and less confused and unsure of his life. Mona, whose life was dictated by so many 'ideals,' ideals that her parents, friends, and indirectly, the society in general, became overwhelmed and could no longer decide for herself what indeed she should be. Thus, Seth confirmed what she is, accepted her for what she is, and brought about in her the realization that difference is not so much based on race or religion but on the individual himself or herself.

Mona expressed this much when she tried to enlighten her friends and family with her basic notion of Judaism: "The whole key to Judaism is to ask, ask, instead of just obey, obey..

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.You've got to realize you're a minority" (137). This meaningful passage must not be taken in a socio-political context; instead Jen wants her readers to interpret this philosophically. From Jen's standpoint, Judaism had helped her confirm for herself that self-reflection were the keys toward achieving self-discovery. The Jew's endless need to question things is of equal importance as trying to put forth questions about one's self. Realizing that one is a 'minority' does not mean she or he belongs to an underprivileged class; this simply means that one must realize that she or he is but a small component of a larger whole, though in no way insignificant to society like other people.

Thus, all the racial and cultural differences depicted in the novel paved the way for Mona to realize that she does not mind being different at all. or, she does not really mind if people treat her normally as if she is not different. Having learned to accept that she is Mona, and not just "Chinese" or "American" or "Jew" helped her transcend the limits she had put upon herself concerning other people's (ever her own) capabilities and aspirations in life.

Jen, in the end, does not attempt to reconcile people's difference in the novel. Instead, she provides readers with the realization that, just like Mona, difference must not become an issue for the culturally-diverse individual, for in difference lies also a similarity among people. What she intended to tell us readers is that the only way to understand people's difference is to understand one's self first -- that is, self-discovery as the path towards achieving affirmation, understanding, and acceptance of what the individual is.

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