A Response to "Going Native"

                In this essay, Francine Prose explores some interesting issues. She raises the question as to whether or not going native is beneficial or detrimental, yet she gives examples to prove both and leaves the decision up to the reader.

                Prose has an interesting writing style in which she has one over all topic that she keeps coming back to. In this case, the idea of assimilating to a culture or going native as she calls it. Then she weaves in many stories about herself, people who were famous and even people I have not heard of. The addition of many stories in this piece make more convincing and really go to prove her point that people assimilate to cultures or views that they did not previously embrace, simply because that is what they find themselves surrounded by or because they find a new appreciation for a new culture.

 I think that in many cases people will choose to go native due to an appreciation for another culture. Gangs draw in a following because they appear to be safer than the world surrounding troubled youth who view the gang as a safe place with family, even though they may be in more danger when associated with a gang.  Awe for another culture can arise from a distain for one’s own culture, as the author described in her experience of boredom with her own little world. Such an appreciation can also arise from a realization once one finds oneself in another culture and this culture seems better, boulder, or more fitting with one’s personality as what happened with Lafcadio Hearn.

One must ask does the dissatisfaction with one’s culture arise from a perspective of nature or nurture. To support the argument for nature, some people are born feeling as though they are in the wrong place and were meant to have been born elsewhere, another time, another place, or another gender. To raise an argument for nurture, some people live their life in an aimless manner and do not realize where they are going until they arrive and the culture that they find themselves in simply suits them. However, nurture can also be an adopted child who finds themselves content in their circumstances even though nature did not put them there and they feel that they are exactly where they belong. Either of these are plausible reasons for either argument and the real cause may vary case by case as each person is slightly different from the next and no two are exactly the same.  

Going native looks different for different people and I think that it can be a good and a bad thing as when one going native they may find a place of belonging as every person needs, however, one may lose all connections with their own culture in the process. Going native is also a bad thing when it is forced upon an entire culture as was the case among many tribes in the native people of both Alaska and American.