This study will examine the concepts of ethnicity, stereotyping, culture and discrimination in the context of Monica Sone's autobiographical Nisei Daughter. The study will focus on the roles these concepts played in the forming of the identity of the author as a second-generation Japanese-American living a relatively happy life with her family in Seattle, Washington, before World War II, and then undergoing increasing discrimination as a result of prejudices against Japanese-Americans as war approached and finally erupted between the United States and Japan.
This study will argue that the book demonstrates how these concepts or forces should be seen as both negative and positive in terms of the shaping of Monica's character. One can condemn stereotyping and discrimination, for example, but, for better and worse, to remove them from the making of this woman is to eliminate forces which created her as a strong, sensitive and intelligent character. Discrimination and stereotyping are destructive, but they are cold hard facts which Monica and millions of other Japanese-Americans experienced in the years surrounding World War II. Her identity, in other words, depends in large part on her responses and resistance to such destructive forces. She could have been beaten down into submission by her experiences, but instead they played a part in making her a powerful individual and a fine writer who speaks her mind for herself and her people.
"Ethnicity" can be an ambiguous term, also referred to as "minority group" or "racial group." For the purposes of this study, ethnicity refers to "differences in socially acquired characteristics, such as language, religion, national origins and culture" (Broom and Selznick 443). In the process of "stereotyping," "a few characteristics are accepted as an adequate description of a minority," which in reality is composed of "people of all ages, educational backgrounds and occupations" (Broom and Selzn...