Tan Jiayi (20) 414: ASSIGNMENT 1 (30 minutes) Discuss how effective the two poems are in showing a sense of cultural understanding and/or assimilation. Both poems show the person's unfamiliarity and discomfort in their new and different cultural environments, but Wender's "Returning" is more concerned with cultural understanding in a short period of time while Gloria's "Assimilation" is more focused on assimilation with permanence shown through imagery and language. For “Returning”, the person finds herself in the unfamiliar environment of Sri Lanka, the place where her husband grew up, when she visited Sri Lanka with her husband. The person's discomfort and discomfort is shown when she has to wear the traditional cultural clothes of her husband's Sri Lankan culture. This can be seen from "a sari halves my gait, I am limping", where the awkward way she walks when she has to wear her sari reveals how she is not used to wearing one, so her movements are hindered by this unfamiliar piece of clothing usually does not wear. Similarly in Gloria's 'Assimilation', the Filipino boy felt uncomfortable and nervous on the first day of school, and was so ashamed of the food he ate at lunch that he hid it from everyone and threw the food away, as if shown in 'I'm ashamed of being more different than what my face had already betrayed, the laughter, I hid it from my schoolmates.', even though he was hungry. If he were familiar with the cultural environment, he could eat comfortably without fear of being judged by his classmates. From then on he was afraid to eat what he had always eaten for lunch before and chose to follow what his schoolmates ate so as to bridge the cultural gap between him and his American schoolmates, so he could belong. .. .in the center of the paper......on the other side, there are no powerful and clear images to cement the sense of cultural assimilation, so I am not able to perceive the poem clearly enough, and therefore 'Returning' it has less impact for me as a reader. Also, what I found interesting was the specific highlighting of the color red in 'Assimilation'. For example, the benches that white children lined up on the playground were painted red, as was the food in the boys' lunch, such as "sliced ​​red peppers and a redder sauce with beef." The fact that these things are the same color seems to symbolize the Filipino boy's desire to assimilate from his own Filipino culture and fit in with his American schoolmates, since they are the same color (red), meaning that they too would once be of the same color. same culture the Filipino boy is able to assimilate, so the Filipino boy would be able to feel a sense of belonging.