I'm a Banana and Proud of It

            In Choy's "Im a Banana and Proud of It," he uses his personal background and history to turn an awkward topic on racial labels and ethnic nicknames into a lively discussion. He narrates his background at the beginning of the essay in order to attract his target audience--Chinese Canadian to read this essay. His personal background would attract his target readers to read the whole essay since they have similar attitude and similar situation. The audience finds the same point of view in the essay since the target readers are Chinese immigrants. The audience wants to read since he/she could find a supporter. The target audience finds out the assimilation is correct in Choy's essay. Choy uses many examples of racial labels and ethnic nicknames, such as "banana", "alien" and "mo no." He wants to use a fair tone to show his point of view. He wants his audience could read it with comfort. He doesnt have biased and defensive opinion on racial labels or nicknames. Instead of it, he lets his audience to judge the meaning of the nickname. In the second paragraph, Choy uses "apples", "bananas" and "Oreo cookies" as the example of the racial labels, which are common and interesting. The readers are familiar with the examples of nicknames and labels in the essay. However, he doesnt tell those names that are good or bad. The readers have heard those labels and nicknames before; however, they may not know the meaning. The audience could evaluate and guess the hidden meaning. Choy lists some bad nicknames such as "Chink" in paragraph four and "juk-sing" in paragraph ten since he wants to show the differences between neutral, good and bad racial labels and ethnic nicknames. He starts with the neutral labels and nicknames, which dont have negative meaning. Many people could accept those names since they dont have discriminated meaning. Choy uses some examples on nicknames and labels, which have negative meaning, in the middle of the essay.