The purpose of this article is to examine the issue of female identity and oppression in the works of Janice Mirikitani and Louise Erdrich, and how these two issues are represented in their literature. These concerns will be analyzed taking into account the historical contexts of both ethnic origins, Japanese Americans and Native Americans, and how they have been limited in their choices by stereotypes created by white American culture. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay During the years before World War II, Japanese-American writers who arrived in the late nineteenth century produced some works that reflected the experiences of first-generation immigrants known as Issei. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, suspending all immigration of Chinese workers. Japanese Americans became aware of the identity issue during World War II, particularly the Nisei, second-generation Japanese Americans. At this point, the internment literature reflected American ambivalence toward the United States. Janice Mirikitani is one of the best-known Japanese American poets of the period. He belongs to the third generation, known as Sansei. She was born in Stockton, California, in 1941. During World War II, she and her family were interned in concentration camps, along with 110,000 other Japanese Americans. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts. During this time, he struggled with his ethnic identity. As director of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, she dedicated herself to helping the poor, the homeless and victims of racism. He had collaborated on several anthologies (including AYUMI, A Japanese American Anthology – with a selection of writings, poems and even images in a bilingual manner). He has also been featured in several periodicals, such as Asian American Heritage. His work was always focused on social and political activism and he believed that poetry should embrace reality, but he also conveyed his messages through dance and even teaching. Through her poetry and activism, Mirikitani confronts the horrors of war, fights institutional racism, advocates for women and the poor, and reflects on her struggle with ethnic identity. Mirikitani was committed to Third World stances against racism and oppression, as well as breaking stereotypes of Asian Americans prevalent in mainstream American culture. Asian American literature emphasized distinctions between Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, and other Asian cultures, and this protest was reflected in its major collections, Awake in the River (1978), We, the Dangerous (1995) . ) and Shedding Silence (1987), which recalls racism and internment in association with scenes of sexual violence. His poetry was often angry, aggressive, frank, direct and melancholic. It was full of questions and personal experiences. In fact, he intensely experienced the social revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s, which led to the cultural development of American minorities, who began to reclaim their own culture. During this period, many writers began to highlight the differences within their communities and explore the implications of being a "minority". Another writer....Native Americans suffered wars, the dispossession of their lands and subsequent confinement to reservations, and the resulting poverty, disease, and dependence on this mistreatment. Most ofthese conflicts occurred because white Americans did not understand the needs of the native peoples. Some well-intentioned reformers believed that Indians could be saved through assimilation, so the focus shifted from attempts to defeat them to trying to transform them in the image of white America. Therefore, assimilation was attempteddrastic changes in the Indians' relationships with the land, a new direction in their education and a revolution in their way of life. However, the assimilation process did not end well, or often forced the natives to abandon their culture, inevitably creating intercultural problems. Louise Erdrich is a famous Native American writer from the Chippewa tribe of North Dakota. However, she was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, in 1954. She studied and wrote poetry, which is reflected in her mastery of her prosaic language. However, her success as a writer followed the publication of a series of short stories for which she was rewarded in the 1980s. He attended Dartmouth College, and his freshman year coincided with the establishment of the Native American Studies department. In these lessons, Erdrich began to explore his ancestry that would eventually inspire his poems, short stories, and novels. Furthermore, she has always said that her childhood, surrounded by storytellers, influenced her work. In 1984 he published Love Medicine, his first novel. It is structured as a series of short stories – many of which were initially published as short stories – about the relationship between three Chippewa families. The novel presents a very intense religious experience in the cultural context of an Indian reservation in the 1930s. These reservations were known for their poverty, high mortality rate, chronic unemployment, and destruction of native culture. Culture was imagined as a set of practices, behaviors, and customs that, if changed, would eliminate all historical obstacles between Indians and Anglo-Saxons. -Americans. In fact, the government passed several laws for the assimilation of Indians into Anglo-Saxon culture, and one of the ways to do this was through religion. Religion was just a tool used by the European majority to pursue their goals. The question is: to what extent did the natives maintain their culture? To what extent have they assimilated? These questions of identity are addressed in “Saint Marie,” the second chapter of Love Medicine. Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, brings us the idea of ​​binaries. Society has trained humans to think in a binary way, where one member is always privileged and the other is inferior. For example white/black and male/female. Likewise, in the works of Mirikitani and Louise Erdrich, we can see a reflection of this binary system in terms of ethnicity and female oppression. The issue of double consciousness is also very important. This term was coined by Du Bois to describe how an individual's identity is divided into different facets. This internal conflict is often experienced by oppressive groups who have internalized their oppression. This double consciousness and racism are closely related. According to Du Bois “it is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul with the yardstick of a world that looks on with amused contempt and pity”. .”First, the issue of ethnicity is indisputable in both authors, since it is a fact that we live in a white racist society, so racial minorities such as Japanese Americans and Native Americans experience oppression. This oppression has profound effects on all aspects of their lives, including identity. Both Asian Americans and Native Americans areThey have been limited by the stereotypes imposed by white Americans and have internalized the insecurities and confusions resulting from these stereotypes. The internalization of these values ​​resulted in a lack of self-knowledge and a lack of self-determination. The need to construct Asian American and Native American culture emerged, and nearly all Asian American writings of the period call for the destruction of these negative stereotypes. In Mirikitani's case, as a Japanese American, she has experienced this issue up close and reflects these experiences deeply in her poetry. She writes in the first person (singular or plural) about experiences of oppression and trauma. In “Looking for America,” a poem from his collection We, the Dangerous, he presents a catalog of racist stereotypes in American media that Asian Americans must contend with. As stated previously, Mirikitani's poetry embraces politics and demonstrates this in We, the Dangerous, where she offers a voice that speaks on behalf of all Japanese Americans interned during World War II. In a 1976 interview, Mirikitani stated that people of color can speak for themselves and that other people who try to write, study, and talk about them may fall into distortions, myths, and lies about the subject. The point is: when white Americans write about immigrants, they continue to follow the same stereotypes or they create new ones. On the other hand, Native Americans who underwent the assimilation processes imposed by white Americans also experienced confusions and insecurities. Louise Erdrich, in her work, addresses the problem of fragmented identities. In the story “Sainte Marie,” the protagonist experiences an internal struggle as she tries to define her cultural identity. Marie Lazarre, an Indian girl who wants to become a saint in her city's convent. When he finally goes up to the convent, he meets Sister Leopolda, an Indian nun who converted to Christianity. However, as the story progresses, we can see a strange relationship between Marie and Leopolda which seems to be a competition between the two of them, as well as a love and hate relationship. This conflict represents an important tension between cultures. In this way, the main theme of the story is identity formation in bicultural environments. In this case Marie has opposite opinions: she wants to be holy, but she doesn't want to give up her Indian identity. Therefore, Marie may represent a syncretistic religious system, something between Native and Christian beliefs. Marie experiences a double consciousness, she perceives the world divided into two antagonistic cultures: the colonizer and the colonized. Furthermore, Sister Leopolda represents a set of values, both cultural and spiritual. Marie represents the Dark One: her pride, her resistance to change, and her imagination. However, he is struggling to choose between his old self (the Dark One) and what Leopolda has to offer. However, in the end, she is proclaimed a saint due to poetic irony. However, Marie Lazarre chooses to identify as an Indian over and against the nuns – Christian, representing white America – turning her own naivety against them, so ultimately the process of assimilation fails. Second, in US society, Asian and Native American women not only face the effects of white racism, but also experience sexism. Therefore, they are different not only from white men, but also from white women and Asian American and Native American men. Because of this double minority issue, Asian and Native American women will always find themselves in a more vulnerable position than men. Unfortunately, however, not all women are aware of their oppression. Mirikitani has had a life full of difficulties because she was.