Swallowing Our Bitterness: The Quiet Cost of Being Asian in America

Analyzing Kathleen Hou’s Essay “Swallowing Our Bitterness: The Quiet Cost of Being Asian in America
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Analyzing Kathleen Hou’s Essay “Swallowing Our Bitterness: The Quiet Cost of Being Asian in America
1 Explain the title of Hou’s essay?
The title “Swallowing Our Bitterness” is a phrase that Kathleen uses to express the silent nature of the Asian Americans who remain calm amid mistreatment, discrimination, physical injuries, and even death meted on them by the white (Hou, 2021). Despite being bitter they remain as nothing happens.
2 What have you notices about Hou’s writing craft such as narration, point of view, imagery, etc.?
Kathleen uses narration to reveal the bad image of racism. She narrates a story of her family receiving complaints about a house color from a neighbor (Hou, 2021). This is a representation of how people of certain colors are disrespected and hated.
3 What is it that Kathleen lacks at the beginning of her narrative?
Kathleen did not have an understanding of how people are subjected to racism (Hou, 2021). To her, a person following her was just fun as she saw on TV.
4 What is the conflict in her narrative? Explain.
The conflict in Kathleen’s essay is the silent nature of Asian Americans. They suffer in pain but chooses to ignore the offenders (Hou, 2021). They complain to themselves because not even the police can listen to them. They only chat about their agony on social media platforms and social groups, meaning that there is no just system.
5 What is the plotline or arc in her narrative essay?
The plotline in this narrative is that people move to a different country and they want to be treated like Americans but truth is that they want to be treated as white (Hou, 2021). This is because people are full of racist mentality.
6 How does Hou’s experience or understanding of the conflict evolve? Which events contribute to her transformation?
Kathleen never knew that racism existed until she saw her parents being insulted because of a house color (Hou, 2021). She saw the elderly being attacked. Police neglecting the issues of the Asian Americans, Asian journalists, and artists receiving threats and an assailant stubbing someone for not liking how he was looked at by the victim.
7 What are the central themes in her essay?
The central themes are police injustice, victimization, endurance, and discrimination.
8 Who is the ideal audience for her essay? Explain
Minority groups. This is because these are the major victims of racism and that they needed to act and not swallow the bitterness anymore (Hou, 2021).
9 What do you think Kathleen is trying to accomplish through her essay?
Kathleen is passing a message to those minority groups that are faced my racial discrimination to wake up and act because silence or rather swallowing of their bitterness does not help anything (Hou, 2021). They play cool and they continue to suffer. Better wake up
10 In your view, is this a successful n...