Amy Tan's "Fish Cheeks"

Amy Tan has written often about how it feels to be caught between two cultures. Explain how this short narrative illustrates the tension between two cultures that she felt as a teenager.


On this short narrative, Amy is clearly ashamed to have an American family over for Christmas Eve and have dinner, because obviously the culture differences would be very different for one another. She was concerned with what her crush and her crush's family is going to react at the table with such strange behavior made by her family. Her mother noticed that she had been embarrased by her cultural differences, but as the years passed she realized that being ashamed of her culture was something that was something that she shouldnt of had felt.

Educational Experience At SJVC!!

Well, having started as soon as I had graduated from high school and coming into San Joaquin Valley at first seemed like it was going to be really hard for me. I thought this because well, I didn't take any vacation and well after four years of continuous school, I really wanted a break. Starting school here was pretty ok, since i had a couple of friends that I had actually influenced in attending this school as well. My first teacher I can remember was Ms. Glance, then Ms. St. John and so on and so on. To my surprise the teachers were amazing and to this day they still are. They were the ones who made me find my inner self, and brought to my attention what career it was that I wanted to persue in my future. It was because of them, that I learned how to believe in myself and to never give up when hard situations arised. Troughout the whole year I have been going through hard family problems in which I really like to keep to myself. But having enough confidence in several teachers made me wanting to continue coming to school. Each and every class that I have taken here at SJVC has made me gain a great amount of knowledge and to this, has made me gain many great friends. Memories that have been made here with the classmates and the teachers, and some of the most cherishable memories that I know for a fact, I will never be able to forget. Some of the things about the students here would be that they should be held accountable for the work done. For me, having to deal with other peoples work when its supposed to be a group assigment really ticked me off along the whole year. It might have been that I was to nice, or that I really wanted to get a good grade and everyone ended up leaving the whole thing for me to finish at the end. Other than that, I really wouldnt change anything about the faculty, everyone working for SJVC is a great asset to the college. They have all helped in some way or another to help me realize that coming to college was the best decision I made after graduating high school.

Descriptive Writing..

As you can see here in this picture, Typical Mexicans at their BEST! This picture was taken early in the morning one day, while me and my closest friends ditched high school. In this picture you can see how wasted we were and how it was that we literally knocked out. The girl to the left side of the picture is my friend named Nicole. Even though she doesn't look as gone as me and Mayte, my best friend, shes all tipsy. Being knocked out, the rest of the girls who aren't in the picture, decided to grab an empty carton of beer and wrapped it under my right arm. My bestfriend, who is wearing the green shirt, was obviously wasted as well. The rest of the girls somehow found a big hat that thought that putting it on her face while she was sleeping was going to be funny, which in this case it really was. A banner of Corona was also found and put on top of the hat. Every time I see this picture it gives a sense of 3 girls being really really drunk and just knocking the heck out, while their sober friends get to mess around with them.

Music...

My favorite type of music, wow!! thats a hard question for me sometimes. To be honest I really dont have a certain "favorite"type, I pretty much like to listen a little bit of everything. From cumbias to rap, I digg! :o) I do believe that the kind of music that I listen to reprents a little bit about the character that I am. I always prefer songs that have a meaning to and have lyrics in wich show emotion. Most of the meanings though are towards appreciating life and the significant other in your life. My musical taste does vary with my mood, depending on what it is that I am feeling like I like to listen to songs that have the similar point of view at the time. Some of my favorite artists of all time would have to be pretty much spanish artists such like Banda el Recodo and Conjunto Primavera.

After receiving my AA degree...

After receiving my AA degee in business administration, I therefore plan to seek for a good, well paying job. I would like to continue my studying at La Verne if possible and plan to get into the marketing field. Ive always been interested in internatinal relations in marketing, so therefore I hope to travel to different countries and get to meet new people. My parents think Im crazy because they say i have to save up and what not, but to be honest I believe that if you really want to get something done, you go out of your way and do it no matter what. Life to me is too short and Im not planning to work my butt off, get married to some guy who ends up being a total jerk and who kills my whole dream of traveling, so for me, Im going to live it up before anything. Sad to think that half of my friends, well , that were friends, ended up getting pregnant and never even got to go out of the U.S . So yea, im actually really excited to be getting my AA degree and getting my life on a right track!! :o)