An Indian Father's Plea By Grizzlybear

We all have eyes, but the way we look through them is different for each of us. Someone can look at an artwork and exclaim how beautiful it is while someone else can look at it and be repulsed. The question is, why is this? Why can two people look at the same thing but see it completely differently? One of the most prominent reasons of that is culture.To us culture is composed of what surrounds us. This includes beliefs and traditions common within social or ethnic groups. These beliefs are reflected within one’s hobbies, professions, lifestyles, etc. But particularly within the cultures related to family and ethnicity. Culture influences our perspective of others and the world but the extent is not always acknowledged. The traditions, beliefs, …show more content…
Now this message is conveyed by Medicine Grizzlybear in his letter, “An Indian Father’s Plea” which revolves around the idea of how culture can influence different ways of learning and understanding. The purpose of the essay was to explain that Wind Wolf, Grizzlybear's son, was not a slow learner but instead challenged to adapt into the new learning system. The perspective of the teacher which originates from the culture she is from, influences her opinion of Wind Wolf, but Grizzlybear shares his culture and way of life to show how Wind Wolf is actually a smart child. This offers insight of how culture can influence our perspective of other people. One example of the way culture affects our perspective in “An Indian Father’s Plea” is in paragraph 13, where Grizzlybear writes, “While you are trying to teach him your new methods, helping him learn new tools for self-discovery and adapt to his new learning …show more content…
For example in “Two Ways to Belong in America” we are presented with two different sisters, Mira and Bharati, who were raised in identical cultures sharing many different opinions. But as they both grew older and diverged into different pathways. These pathways led them to different social groups which ended up affecting their culture and their view of the world. Even though the two sister grew up with the same exact culture they grew into new ones, changing how each sister views the immigration issue presented. In the text Bharati herself says, “We dressed alike, in saris; we expressed identical views on politics, social issues, love and marriage in the same Calcutta convent-school accent.” (Mukherjee 83). This quote identifies how Mira and Bharati really are coming from the same cultures and shared a lot of things in their childhood as well as shared opinions on a broad variety of subjects. Then later in the text we are confronted with the fact how Mira and Bharati differed from their similar, almost identical, culture to where they stand now. “Like well-raised sisters, we never said what was really on our minds, but we probably pitied one another. She, for the lack of structure in my life, the erasure of Indianness, the absence of an unvarying daily core. I, for the narrowness of her perspective, her uninvolvement with the mythic depths or the superficial pop culture of this society.” (Mukherjee 84). Mira decided to

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