Assimilation!

To assimilate means that to adapt, or absorb your surroundings. Assimilation can do with culture, personality, the way you dress, language, etc. Assimilation is shown early in the play by Ruth because whatever another person does, she agress with them. She does what others do instead of herself because she was taught to react by reacting to other peoples decisions instead of hers to satisfy them. Ruth without a doubt has assimilation as a weakness because she looks like she doesn't have any pride when she reacts to others decisions but her own. It makes other women look weak when it comes to their rights. I'm not going to lie, I have seen people assimilate at school like for example,(not to be racist) I've seen mexicans or white people try to act and talk like black people just to try and satisfy and fit in with the black people. I have also seen nerds talk to jocks about sports, games, stats about games and players just to try and fit in with the jocks even though the nerds do not know squat about sports because they don't tune into the sports channels. Last, but not least I have witnessed an old friends of mine do insane dares in front of his other friends and teachers just so he could claim he was apart of the "cool clique." I do not assimilate one bit because I don't want to satisfy others because i must dress a certain way, or change my personality, or accomplish requirements to join a certain group. In Eric Liu's situation of assimilation, he was a Chinese-American and he saw things he had never witnessed before in China, like different ways to eat, different ways of dressing, the language of America, and many other things. He had to assimilate to be successful because he had to learn many different customs to learn about the white people's way of life! He was feeling bad while he was on his journey of assimilation because he had neglected his roots of China, but in reality he didn't because he was not losing anything, he was just gaining more knowledge of a different country.