I picked “When I Was Growing Up” by Nellie Wong from This Bridge Called My Back. I think this entry is very important because it illustrates how a child sees the world at the first sight. In today’s social atmosphere, we encourage every girl to be a true self, but to a certain extent, this is not entirely true. Society invisibly gives girls a lot of frames, how to behave like a girl, how to be an elegant girl, how to have smooth thighs and armpits.This poem is about the narrator’s own assimilation into the dominant white culture, and a need to become something she in fact isn’t. It shows how society can influence your identity because the narrator wishes to be white as it is the dominant culture and has ‘privileges’ with it.
I agree with what you wrote in your post as it was also the same poem that I chose to write my post about as well. Society is continuously giving young girls templates of the ways in which they should look, act, and dress and it is honestly damaging to their mental health and the ways that they think of their self worth.
I agree, I do think that conforming to society’s ideals is somewhat of an identity-snatching thing, and it does not allow you to be yourself even if you wanted to. I also think that this poem is important and brings awareness to this issue.
I agree with you. At a young age, they’re a lot of standards already put on kids, tiny girls. Such as beauty standards, acting “girly,” and toy communication where kids would rather play with a white doll than a black doll. And to this day, a lot of women are insecure or don’t know how to love themselves because of these standards.