First:
For this week’s online assignment, answer in 300 words or more: How does the concept of indebtedness differ from gratitude according to Cathy Park Hong? Elaborate on this difference. To what extent are Cathy’s, Merle’s, and Janice’s images of the United States as ‘home” transformed by the process of conditional existence?
Second:
Then, respond to at least one classmate’s post in 200 words or more.
In “The Indebted,” Cathay Park Hong discusses the differences between indebtedness and gratitude. With indebtedness, Hong describes the term as a weight on her shoulders and fixated on the future because as a first generation Asian American, you have this feeling of obligating and catering your parents’ desires because of the sacrifices they made for their children. Whereas gratitude is pure happiness. It is simply “I am grateful to you for sacrificing your life for me.” and not “I am grateful to you for sacrificing your life for me and in return I will sacrifice my life for you”. Indebtedness comes with condition and gratitude is being grateful for a deed that was unconditional. For example, a lot of first generation Asian Americans feel obligated to stay in touch with their culture, do good in school, get a good career, and give back to their parents because “they owe them so much for bringing them to America”. This can cause a lot of Asian Americans to lose touch with themselves because they spend most of their lives trying to cater to their parents’ dreams that they never thought about their own, because they feel it would be selfish to think about their own dreams when their parents sacrificed so much for them. When Asian Americans don’t feel obligated to sacrifice their whole lives for their parents as well, they are deemed as rebellious and ungrateful. I feel that a lot of Asian Americans can relate that their parents have really high standards towards them, and expect them to work hard, study hard in school, get a degree, get a good job, and pay them back by retiring them. Having that expectation set on you is indebtedness, whereas you willingly doing those for your parents is gratitude. A lot of us are pressured to do our very best to live up to our parents’ standards, but sometimes those standards can cause us to lose ourselves instead.
