Response: In the American Society

I found this story to be very interesting and thought provoking. I think one of the main reasons for this was the separation that I felt between myself and the characters. I do not have any similar experiences to those written about in the book and my socioeconomic situation is different than that of the author and the characters. These differences helped me to see a different perspective and put myself in someone else's shoes.

One of the most interesting things about this story was the separation of the two "societies" to "his own" and "American society." It seemed to me that the father had separated the two societies in his mind and chose to live in his own society while being forced to live in American society. He approached business differently, interacts with his neighbors differently and simply lived in a different way than the people around him were living. This is evident in the way that he ran the diner and the manner in which he hired employees and dealt with their legal issues. He wasn't concerned with the issues that most American business owners deal with, such as legality of their employees, etc. He was more concerned with making money and being successful in the present, and ignored the potential for bigger issues.

The father also conducted his social life in a way that reflects his individual view of society. The way that he interacted at the party "in American society" showed that he still viewed himself as an outsider in a foreign society. He was unable to interact with the Americans comfortably because they seemed to lack a "common ground." This gave me insight into the lives of immigrants, not only years ago, but in today's society as well. I have not ever felt this way but I have neighbors that are from Korea and I have had similar encounters with them. Reading this story made me realize the possible extent to which immigrants might experience feelings of displacement or discomfort in their new environments.

Over all, to me this story was mostly about awareness. Through reading this story I felt like I was able to expand my horizons and better understand what an immigrant might feel when immersed in American culture for the first time. I also began to think of some of the ridiculous customs and traditions that we consider to be "norms" and how other cultures might perceive these customs. We, as a society, do not do a very good job of welcoming other cultures into our own and tend to expect people from other cultures to assimilate to our own quickly and without any difficulty. To me, this is a bad system and requires some updating. Unfortunately, that would require many changes to many different view points across an entire population.