Observation 9: Follow Through Ch. 9

I think that Mukherjee’s essay would persuade them. Throughout the article she remains completely neutral, relating herself to both sides of the argument, and then at the end comes up with a resolution. She emphasizes that although she was not born in America, she considers herself to be American while never forgetting who she is and where she came from. She describes how as a country, we are not the only ones who have the sort of tendency to appreciate only what is our culture and explains rather that every culture behaves the same way as she saw with her own family in India and husband in Canada. She also points out that everyone had to descend from somewhere other than America and we were all brought together to different regions as one and bringing with us our “desh”. I think that she can relax them about their positions by pointing out such facts. The fact that she herself came from a different country but can speak, live, and learn the American way of life make her just as American as the next person. She appreciates and takes pride in the American culture as much as she does in her Indian culture. She makes it clear that she appreciates and holds on to the American ways of life and expect people to want their country to remain in their own ways but points that we have a European influence and we influence others. I think further information that would bring both parties to a consensus would be more discussion on how cultures other than us feel about assimilating ways and how they few their own cultures compared to other. The instance in which she pointed out her time in Singapore about the American vandalizing a car provided some in sight, but further depth would help as well. Maybe opinions or interviews directly from citizens rather than broad opinions voiced by a government since those are usually spoken from one person and expected to be the voices of everyone in a country. It would give the reader a sense of what everyday people are thinking about other cultures and maybe give the authors of the other two essays some more knowledge about what other people like them are feeling. Overall, I feel that Mukherjee did a good job remaining in the middle of the argument. She related to both parties equally while still expressing her own opinion and ultimately coming to a resolution.