Assimilate and its Effects

Assimilate means to absorb or take in and incorporate as one's own as the dictionary says. To break it down  assimilate means to try to be something you’re not, trying to resemble something or trying to fit in, not only through appearance but through the mind as well. If you think about it, there are many ways one assimilates, in a sort of way it’s an influence whether it’s good or bad. For example in the play A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha is one who worries about assimilation. There are some ways she shows it without a doubt, like when she mutilates her natural hair so that it looks more like that of a white women's hair. Also, the way she talks when not at home; a tongue that lets out words but words of a Hollywood queen or a queen of the Nile. One can argue whether assimilate is a good thing or a bad thing, it all depends on the influence a person is taking in or absorbing. For instance, Beneatha, wanting to have the same physical attraction like white women had, shows the weakness of confidence she really has of herself. But that assimilation can become a good thing, after a while you'll get bored with it and it will give you the confidence to show who you really are.

I’ve noticed people around me have assimilated or are assimilating and I as well have assimilated before. Some may come to school with new designer cloths one day trying to impress the so called "higher class". Some do it to get attention, the attention they rarely experience even at home or others may do it because they were once taunted and don't want to go through that humiliation again. My assimilation never got to the point where, "I need", was a constant phrase that would come out of my mouth. The trying to fit in was rarely a problem to me but it was more like a pusher-upper thing that gave me the confidence to express who I really was.  Notes of a Native Speaker by Eric Liu, portrays a similar assimilation, the one that makes you realize who you really are. Eric Liu assimilates with peers around him because he feels like a stranger. He did things with his peers, the things he would not do at home but at the same time he would learn new things  Later on in his life he realizes that, that was not who he really was or should have been. Leaving behind his cultural traditions, he notices that if he did not assimilate he would have been a total different person then what he was at that moment. Eric see assimilation as a good but then bad thing because he was slowly pushed away from his cultural traditions but then again a good thing because he was successful in life.