Character Analysis Fresh Off The Boat By Eddie Huang

In Fresh off the Boat, Eddie Huang throughout his life struggled with his own identity due to his family dynamics which play a huge part in his choices. The author touches on these tough subjects of race and domestic violence which in a sense altered his view of his identity. Identity can be developed in many ways and there are a lot of factors that shape one’s views. Factors such as family heritage and racial stereotypes can alter one’s perception of the world. The choice of whether to assimilate is up to the individual themselves. Eddie Huang is an abused and bullied child who struggles to find his own identity while combatting cultural stereotypes. The abuse Eddie suffered was due to a cultural divide between his Asian immigrant parents†¦show more content†¦The violence in his family was normal to him. Eddie felt the pressures and unspoken code of conformity. There was a lot of pressure to fit in, after all to be singled out in the Chinese culture can cause students and their parents to feel shame or to be humiliated in front of their peers but Eddie refused to conform which led to lots of beatings and castigation by his parents and rebuke by his peers. From the people at Christian Fellowship to First Academy to my parents to Confucius to thousands of years of ass-backwards Chinese thinking, I knew how it felt. Everything my parents did to me and their parents did to them was justified under the banner of Tradition, Family, and Culture. (Huang 123-124) A Chinese family expects the child to support the family by doing well in school and obeying his parents. The Chinese value education as a stepping stone to success. Children are under a lot of pressure to succeed in school. Eddie speaks about how Confucius had a profound impact on his parent’s views and values. After all Confucius has been credited with stressing the importance of virtue and natural order in a civil society. Unlike others who let it eat them up and took it to their graves, I refused to be that Chinese kid walking everywhere with his head down. I wanted my dignity, my identity, and my pride back. (Huang 81) Eddie did not hold the same values as his parents and needed to stand out on his own merits which he wouldShow MoreRelatedGender Stereotypes And Gender Roles1959 Words   |  8 Pagesfaces of white actors and actresses have always been prevalent in the media. For generations, many teenagers have been exposed to countless movies with white people in major roles. Moreover, the few roles that are cast to minorities feature the characters in their stereotypical personas (Bonilla-Silva 179). Even in advertising, Asians are placed in business settings, upholding the hard-working Asian stereotype (Taylor and Stern 50). As Taylor and Stern mention in their paper, the â€Å"model minority†