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The Good Daughter: Cultural differences in the American-Korean Background

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The Good Daughter: Cultural differences in the American-Korean Background
Woods Morgan

Bugher/English 111 34-E
Final Draft Essay
01 April 2013
Cultural differences: American-Korean background

The life of this American-Korean young woman made her more knowledgeable of her background. Caroline Hwang is the author of “The Good Daughter,” she is an inspiring writer for all women. Hwang has an MFA in creative writing from the University of New York, which lead her to become the senior editor at Good Housekeeping. In Hwang 's article “The Good Daughter,” uses ethos to identify the issues of her torn culture. She is an American-Korean who has lost her cultural identity the moment another Korean woman told her she pronounced her last name wrong. That 's when she realized she is not the American-Korean she thought she was. “Hwang had discomfort and confusion she felt when another Korean corrected her pronunciation of her last name. The difficulty of satisfying her parents expectations and her own.” (Hwang 1).Her parents migrated to the United States thirty years ago and two years before she was born. All her life until the point she went into the dry-cleaning store she never felt any confusion about her culture and not knowing how to pronounce her last name. She never knew of any other Koreans, so being Korean was just as important to her than being American. After that incident in the dry-cleaners Hwang felt more distraught than ever about her cultural identity. This lead her to want to learn about her background. As Hwang got older she was expected to keep following her parents expectations and their dreams. Her parents wanted her to attend law school and pursue a career in that. Following their expectations would become a compromise. She had been following expectations for 20-some years. She wanted to pursue a career in grad school to become a writer. But Hwang said “I could not bring myself to disobey or disappoint.” (Hwang 3). As she was continuing with school, she went to get her Ph.D in English literature. She thought that



Cited: Hwang, Caroline “The Good Daughter.” Web Newsweek 01 April 2013, (Volume 132 Issue 12 Pg. 1-4) Hwang, Caroline “The Good Daughter.” Web StudyMode.com 01 April 2013, <http://www.studymode.com/essays/Summary-On-The-Good-Daughter-By-500915.html>. (Pg 1)

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