Multicultural Los Angeles

Essay # 100653

Ethnic Studies > Modern
Ethnic Studies > North American
Geography

This paper examines multicultural crashes and mergers, depicted in the film "Crash" and literature about Los Angeles.

1,190 words () | 5 sources | MLA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that a culture is more than just a race, a language or a country but rather, through crashes and mergers, it creates new ways of seeing the world. The author points out that in Los Angeles, which is a cosmopolitan, world-class city with no majority race, the multicultural issues are not social acceptance problems that are common in suburban and rural districts, but instead psychological challenges, particularly the all-important and pervasive issue of identity. The paper stresses that culture crash is best grappled with by those individuals directly going through the continuous turmoil that it invariably creates and who are in the best position to portray their own responses to the continuing evolution of their culture.

From the Paper:

"On the other hand, Karen Tei Yamashita's novel, "Tropic of Orange", deals less with personal issues of culture crash and merger than with the broader, even global, effects of mass culture merger and its attendant economic manifestations in policies such as NAFTA (which, as has been argued by many, has a tendency to erase cultural distinctions in favor of mass uniformity). Yamashita's novel does touch upon the matter of self-identity, in so far one of its central characters (Emi) is an Asian-American; but there is so much turmoil and turbulence going on around the characters that one can barely stop for the luxury of self-analysis."

Sample of Sources Used:

Burr, Ty. "Well acted 'Crash' is a course in stock characters." Boston Globe. 6 May 2005.
Chocano, Carina. "Crash" Movie Review. L.A. Times. 6 May 2005.
"Los Angeles." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 20 November 2006. Wikimedia Foundation. Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles.
O'Hearn, Claudine C. Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural. New York: Pantheon 1998.
Yamashita, Karen Tei. Tropic of Orange. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press 1997.