A Different Mirror: A Story of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki : Author's Style, Rhetorical Strategies, Mood/Tone, Summary, Intended Audience and Author's Purpose

Describe the author’s style: The author wrote this piece of literature in a formal format because he wanted to express his respect for every culture and wanted to ensure an unbiased approach. This book was written more as an informative piece of literature by including historical accounts. However, although the book is meant to be serious, Takaki did use figurative language; he used this to ensure a reader’s interest. Irony especially was a common aspect in Takaki’s writing because through use of irony, information was more questionable and thought provoking, which makes a reader more engaged in the subject matter. In addition, Takaki used imagery, he did this by adding peculiar details that were unnecessary to know or understand, but rather painted a picture because he wanted people not only to be engaged in his writing, rather feel what it was he meant and hoped to create a connection between the reader and the text.

Give an example that demonstrates this style, and explain how it does so: “Their liberators also included Japanese-American soldiers. With their families in internment camps in the United States, they had fought their way through Italy and France. . .” page 378 This quote exemplifies the use of irony. It is ironic because although the United States aided in the liberation of the Jews and created safe havens for them; United States was unable to treat Japanese-Americans with that same kindness, even though they served in the war for this country. It makes the United States seem hypocritical because how is it possible to be a hero and a villain at the same time. This is where figurative language brings about discussions and questioning, which illustrates Takaki’s stylist use of diction.

Rhetorical Strategies:

Ethos: This novel is most definitely more based on the idea of factual information, considering most of the text is in-text citations that are resources from well known sources. For this reason being, the book is bmore based on informative purposes and tends to be of a more serious topic of discussion. Takaki wanted to establish a ground with his readers and for that reason he used ethos to ensure his purpose got through to the reader. His purpose was for readers to opinionate their own judgement on cultures and for that reason he tried to ensure an unbiased text.

Red Herring: Takaki using this rhetorical strategy to give readers something to think about. He leaves them with an issue without actually addressing it, because yet again he wants to ensure that people make their own judgement on what becomes of that situation or why it takes place. It is also a strategy for getting people to think and question ideas or concepts that have never been given reason to be thought of.  He does this most specifically with social issues, especially concerning prejudices.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: To get a specific point across, Takaki uses  this strategy. He specific uses a cause and effect to plan out his information. An example would be where he uses Japanese Americans, although they were military men and served for their country, they were still treated with discrimination. Therefore Takaki used because they were still minorities, they were still treated with discrimination, and explained how United States was hypocritical considering they had helped the Jew in their liberation, so because they were hypocritical they still discriminated against the Japanese. He makes one point and then addresses that the first point caused the second point.

Describe the mood/tone of the work: The tone of this work seems almost shameful and discouraging. Takaki tries to help us understand the several mistakes all cultures made that encompassed racism and how our country contributed to that prejudice. The work  is told in an informative manner, but because it describes in great details the atrocities of some of our own country’s inability to be compassionate towards certain races throughout history, including our own races, readers gain an emotional connection to this book. Therefore, it creates a shameful guilt in our subconscious, because many people characterize themselves as being proud to be an American and by reading the injustice America brought to its own people, it is discouraging to think a country people are so fond of have done such terrible things to their own culture. It makes people question their reason to be proud of their country when their country could be the very reason they were enslaved or treated poorly throughout history.

Plot/Book Summary (with in-text citations). Takaki guides us through a series of histories behind different races in America who were discriminated against, oppressed, forced out, etc. He goes through the history of Native Americans,  African Americans, Irish Americans, Latinos, Jews, Chinese,  and Japanese. He enforces his ideas with numerous accounts of people according to the situation and ethnicity. To continue on all of this, he goes on to point out the fact that race is not completely an accurate idea; it was a socially constructed concept. He says in the beginning of the book ,   “[r]ace…has been a social construction that has historically set apart racial minorities from European immigrant groups” (10).  This statement brings to light all that prejudice felt towards minorities in this country. The book also goes into detail the positive effects oppression brought; for example the unification of several minority groups to help fight for civil rights. Takaki tends to keep his own personal emotions out of the book with means he encompasses a wide range of information about each culture and their stories, giving a non-biased approach in all his information.

Intended Audience: Takaki never specifically meant to target one type of audience, but because this book talks about the history of the United States and how cultures are important in today’s society, something which today's adolescents know nothing of. I believe his primary reason in giving this information to young adults was to help them understand different cultures in the hopes of creating a more unified and peaceful future. Adolescents are the future and by informing them of the mistakes made by past ancestors and specifically giving a cause and an effect helps them understand the significance of what it means to obtain the power to make a change in history.

Author’s Purpose:       Takaki intended the book to reveal a sense of respect toward all cultures. He wanted to share that all cultures experienced similar oppression and in this way hoped to change the mentality of people’s ignorance. By using historical information to prove his claims, it was ensured that everything said was factual. He wanted people to understand that we all are equal and race is nothing but a everchanging identifier. There is no such thing as superior or inferior, because we were all born the same and share the same world. By listing similarities faced by different types of ethnicities, it is proven that we all share a connection, whether it be in similar oppression, success, warfare or mistakes; each culture is able to define a relationship with any other culture based on infinite similarities or shared customs. Takaki wanted people to share his knowledge and inform this history so that people may make an opinion for themselves, rather than living in ignorance.