美国是一个文化大熔炉，汇聚有世界各个国家各个角落的人群以及文化传统。只要你想，你随时可以保留着自己民族的特色——这就是美国式自由的精髓。
母亲和普通的上班族一样，过着朝九晚五的生活，每天通常6点左右到家。然后开始为家人准备晚餐，30年来从未间断。我长大后，母亲做饭我就常在一旁观看，母亲把晒干了的枸杞和当归一同放进猪排骨汤里炖。这是一种东南亚特有的风味餐，猪骨头和条子肉都是母亲亲力亲为的。有的人做饭熬汤照着菜谱的做法，什么时间做什么事情即可，而母亲不是这样。她每每都站在锅前，一会儿拿勺子尝尝味道，一会儿调试火的大小，所有的过程都是根据自己的判断和经验，又或者是靠记忆力。毫无疑问，她清楚什么方式是最快的：她开车回家途中，会经过几家快餐店和一个中式餐馆。她完全可以打包回来给我们吃，但是，她拒绝打破以往的“惯例”直到我们全家移民到美国。因为她清楚自己的位置，她知道自己是谁。即使到美国生活的9年里，她也不忘常常跟我讲起我在新加坡的幼年时光，她不想让我忘记自己的身份。
对于移民者而言，成为一个国家的一部分的重要条件就是积极接受“同化”。最好的例子就是我两个侄子。一个9岁住在乔治城，一个13岁住在南卡罗来纳，在他们这个年龄，接受任何东西都非常快（美国式生活），并且轻易的区分出了“pen” 与 “pin”的不同。而我截然不同。我们家的文化传统一直是“新加坡式”，所以我的口语夹杂着很浓的新加坡当地语。每日餐点皆是新加坡味道。生活中，大部分时间都是与“同乡”交流而且每年必须回一趟新加坡。长时间以来，我一直在新加坡人与美国人之间找寻平衡点。特别是“911”事件发生后，那是我刚到美国没多久，就在我家附近，我开始质疑自己是一个不爱国的异类美国人。我唯一可以认同自己的一点是我接受民主与独立的意识。但是，我不知道自己是否可以将美国红白蓝星条旗（美国血液）融入到自己的民族意识里（新加坡曾经属于马来、长时期受英国统治、与中国建立了持久良好的贸易往来关系）。在标准考试表格其中一栏里，我看到“亚裔美国人”这印着我身份的5个字，可是我没有办法完全将其灌输到我的血液里。
随着年龄的增长，我读了很多像汤亭亭（华裔女作家）以及朱莉娅·阿尔瓦雷斯等移民作家的作品后，我意识到我的“非同化”思想是另一种美国文化主体（the freedom to be different）。美国是唯一的容纳不同文化的国家。你可以说不同的语言，吃不同的饮食（crave a quarter-pound burger accompanied by sup kambing (mutton in spiced coconut broth)）、穿不同的衣裳。而法国与德国恰恰不是这样，他们要求移民者最起码从表面上要像一个当地人。还有的说美国没有一个官方的语言，而世界上大概有170个国家都有自己的官方语言。美国政府不会强迫其他国家民族的人去接受美国文化。因此，我不需要放弃自己国家的文化、传统、语言以及祖先（广东人、潮州人）。作为美国人，我不需要同一。
不到1年前，随着母亲入籍，我也光荣的加入了美国籍成为了名义上的美国人。一直以来，我都不太在意国籍对我人生的意义，直到我第一次拿到那个军蓝色的护照，看到自己照片和姓名的地方印有“United States of America”时候，我第一次对“归属感”有了强烈的感觉。我是美国人了。感觉真好。
分析
这篇ESSAY的重点就是描写文化碰撞。作者以母亲为全家准备晚饭开头，引用一系列的“dang gui, bak kut teh, agak-agak”外文单词，这是一不同；新加坡文化传统与美国当地人的文化矛盾是二不同。
第三点文章优势是作者通过具象的描写来说明同化与异化。当提到“同化”时，作者巧妙的举例说明（侄子，新加坡VS南卡罗来纳）。提到变化的时候，作者没有简单泛泛的一写，而是用“pen” 与 “pin”发音形象的说明。类似的例子还有，当作者说美国的包容兼蓄，不是简单的将美国比喻成“大熔炉”，而是通过几个具体的物象来解释：不同的语言、衣服、饮食等方面。就好比“crave a quarter-pound burger accompanied by sup kambing (mutton in spiced coconut broth)”文学效果很强。作者现身说法向人们说明“文化碰撞”。
尽管如此，这篇ESSAY仍有不足之处。首先就是准确用词，切忌华而不实。不是越有文学色彩的词语才是最好的。就像最打动人们内心的往往是最平凡最普通的语言一样。
其次，就是直截了当。从招生官的角度来说，我们想要看到的是申请者对自己性格塑造的最直观、透彻的表达，而不是炫耀，自己的文学素养多高。这不是我们关注的重点。
招生官建议：切忌！招生官想要从ESSAY中看到的是一个直观的、深刻的、透彻的个人形象而不是简单的炫技。
参考原文：
(7)CHARLENE WONG“THE FREEDOM TO BE DIFFERENT”
My mother returns home from work at 6:00 P.M. and begins to prepare our family dinner, just as she has for the past thirty years. Growing up, I would watch her as she stirred sun-dried goji berries and dappled dang gui roots into the boiling pork broth of her bak kut teh soup, a savory Southeast Asian dish comprising hunks of pork bones with slivers of meat that escaped the butcher’s knife. Instead of conveniently following a recipe or setting a kitchen timer, she stands over the pot to periodically taste and adjust the heat setting, relying only on her ability to agak-agak, or approximate from memory, to make the soup just right. She knows there is an easier way; on her drive home, she passes at least two fast-food chains and a Chinese take-out restaurant. Yet, she refuses to change her routine, continuing a practice that she had established years before we emigrated from Singapore to America. Then a homemaker, she has neither adapted her practices to suit her new schedule as a working parent, nor has she accepted certain conveniences of her new life as an American. Her staunch decision to be just who she is, despite her transplant halfway around the world, has forced me to consider how I can reconcile my early youth in Singapore to my nine years spent growing up in America.
For an immigrant, the most intuitive and easiest way to become a part of one’s new country is to assimilate. This was the route taken by my cousins, who when aged nine and thirteen, embraced and adopted all things “American,” which for them in Georgetown, South Carolina, included drawing out their vowels to pronounce “pen” and “pin” in the same way. In contrast, my parents’ dictate was to preserve who I am. I still speak with a Singaporean accent. My daily meals consist of the curries of Singaporean cuisine. I interact with fellow countrymen (not least my parents and siblings), and make an annual visit to my native island. For a long time, I struggled to find a common ground between my identification as a Singaporean and the call to be “American” as represented at school, in the media, and by my friends and neighbors. It was especially in the wake of 9/11, which occurred so close to home and so soon after I arrived in America, that I questioned whether my nonassimilation was unpatriotic, “un-American.” To be sure, I fully embraced the liberty and individualism guaranteed by the Constitution, the most American of documents. But I did not know if I could dovetail the quintessential red-white-and-blue-blooded American with my heritage that is the Southeast Asian pastiche that colored Malay roots with British rule and Chinese trade. Standardized test forms told me that I was “Asian-American,” but I could not comfortably append a whole culture to my identity.
Yet, as I matured and read the works of immigrant writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Julia Alvarez, I realized that my nonassimilation is the embodiment of the most American of ideals—the freedom to be different. America is the only nation where it is tolerable, if not celebrated, for me to say certain words a different way, to crave a quarter-pound burger accompanied by sup kambing (mutton in spiced coconut broth), and to wear a cotton sarong instead of sweatpants at home. In France and Germany, society’s message to immigrants is: If you want to live among us, you should at least appear to be like us. It is extremely telling that America has no official language (more than 170 nations do). America does not call upon her people to give up their cultural identities as soon as their right hands touch their hearts to pledge allegiance. America has never, and would never, in exchange for the privilege of being an American, ask that I revoke my Singapore citizenship, abandon the accent of my origin, or break with the traditions of my ancestors, who called themselves Cantonese, Teochew, Peranakan. To be an American, I did not have to assimilate. My cultural identity made me a part of America.
Less than a year ago, I became an American citizen as a by-product of my mother’s naturalization. While my citizenship was not a conscious election on my part, as I held my navy blue passport for the first time, and saw my face and name under the “United States of America,” I was struck with a deep and abiding sense of belonging. I am an American, and it feels just right.
COMMENTARY
This essay-writer impresses immediately with a vivid introductory scene (the author’s mother preparing an evening meal), building to a concise statement of the conflict: namely, the struggle to reconcile the details of a Singaporean youth with the facts of American residency and nationalization. The insertion of foreign words (dang gui, bak kut teh, agak-agak) directly into the flow of the narrative, followed closely by their English clarifications, could easily have been cumbersome, but here it serves as an appropriate mirror of the very cultural collision that is the essay’s focus.
This writer separates herself with her ability to support abstract or commonplace assertions with clever, concrete images. For instance, instead of simply telling us that the easiest path for an immigrant is assimilation (a point not intuitive for anybody unfamiliar with the immigrant experience), she gives us the example of her cousins—Singaporean expats in South Carolina. Then, instead of merely informing us that the cousins adopted a drawl, she creatively colors that information by seizing on something specific and notable: the tendency to conflate the pronunciations of “pen” and “pin.” A similar instance: Where Charlene could have gotten away with the (decidedly bland) statement that “America is a melting pot” or “America tolerates a mix of ethnic identities,” she gives the observation some real pizzazz: America, she writes, is a place where it’s acceptable to “crave a quarter-pound burger accompanied by sup kambing (mutton in spiced coconut broth).” The clash of culture is elegantly embodied by a clash of cuisine in a gesture that any poet would appreciate. The writer’s deftness with the material is not simply apparent in the construction of these clever verbal collisions, but largely in her ability to recognize the opposing forces at work, the richness of dual cultures, and the vivacity she alone can recognize in such different worlds, with one foot in both realms.
This isn’t to say that the writer never falls down. One thing that any essay writer should be aware of is the importance of going after the right words, not the ones that sound most erudite. The pieces that sing the loudest will be the ones where the words melt off the page, leaving the reader with an unbroken series of images or impressions. It’s important to think from the perspective of the admissions officer: At the end of the day, they want to see an applicant who is able to convey a soulful character, a memorable personality; therefore, make sure your writing is a vehicle toward encapsulating your identity, and not as a measure of your intelligence itself. In the end, it’s easy to see through the big words and find very little behind them. Don’t run the risk of being the applicant whose essay gets written off because it looks like a bad Thomas Jefferson impersonation. Leave the high English to Milton and Dryden, and focus on painting a believable picture that will last in an admissions officer’s head.
—Christian Flow
