How did the dry cleaner's words affect caroline from the story the good daughter
Answers
ANSWER:
As Caroline reached the dry cleaning store, she could find a Korean lady. Caroline wanted to convey that they were of the same country. So she slowly bowed her head. But without noticing that, the lady asked for her name. She said her name as “Hwang”. To her surprise, she was asked whether she were a Chinese. Caroline replied that she was a Korean. The dry cleaner teased her by saying that she could not pronounce her name correctly but was claiming that she was a Korean.
This made her depressed that even though she recognizes people of her country, they could not recognize her. She feels humiliated. She then asks her mom about the reason why they hadn’t corrected her earlier. Her mother took the issue in a simple way saying that even if she didn’t know how to pronounce it, she was still an American.
The dry cleaner's words greatly affected Caroline in the story ‘The Good Daughter’ by reminding her of her identity crisis and displacement as an immigrant.
EXPLANATION:
In the thought provoking essay ‘The Good Daughter’ by Caroline Hwang, the writer addresses the crisis of diaspora. She is an immigrant from Korea trying to adapt herself in America. On one hand she is trying to Americanise herself and live life as an American on the other her past ancestry keeps haunting her. Like Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pirzada, or Judah Waten’s Mother, she suffers from a diasporic conflict.
When she goes to the dry cleaner’s, who is also Korean, she tries to relive her Korean identity by greeting her in Korean. But instead of being able to establish a kinship she gets greatly affected by the dry cleaner’s words, who mocks her for her wrong pronunciation of her Korean surname. This really hurts her as she feels she is in no man’s land. She is neither a proper Korean nor an American.