Personal Accounts

"Food, in the end, in our own tradition, is something holy. It's not about nutrients and calories. It's about sharing. It's about honesty. It's about identity."

Louise Fresco

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/identity.html#BzczYsb4HEdFGQZG.99

Most accounts of immigration we come across in schools are in textbooks. They give historical accounts, an overview, about the reactions of older inhabitants of the area that happen with an increase in an immigrant population. In Fish Cheeks author Amy Tan gives a personal example about the personal events and feelings that happen on the newcomers point of view.
Tan is in love with the "Minster's son" who is "White as Mary" and is worried about his family's reactions to her family's traditional foods and customs (Tan 2). Tan's anxiety is shown in a panicked inner dialogue that criticizes her family and herself. Her description of "Our shabby Chinese Christmas" is a demonstration of the divide between ethnicities (Tan 4).   "Our" is an inclusive possessive, but Tan uses our selectively, only applying to herself and her family. In her mind, her crush and his family are on another spectrum, an impossible distance to cross. Her conviction of the impossibility is challenged when the minster does the unexpected. He "managed a small burp" in response to Tan's father's declaration of traditional Chinese eating etiquette (Tan 29). Tan was only thinking about how rude her culture would seem to those unfamiliar with it, and how no one would close the divide. The shock of the small gesture of acceptance "Stunned (her) into silence for the remainder of the meal" (Tan 30). She had never considered that the white family would be willing to embrace her culture.