Happy Birthday or Whatever

In her book “Happy Birthday Or Whatever”, Anne Choi showed a unique way of how families have a multicultural similarity. The similarity is the ability to often have frustrating relationships with our parents or guardians. These inter-generational issues can be a multitude of issues. For Anne, it was her parents forgetting her birthday. We have all likely went through a similar situation no matter our race, gender, or age. Personally I have been through a similar situation regarding birthdays and the expectations of having family members acknowledge the event. But from a larger macro perspective, the issue of our parents forgetting birthdays shows how we all can function similar to one another. Whether it be a poor white family living in City Heights where the mother works two jobs forgetting a birthday, or a family in La Jolla where the father is a microbiologist and the mother stays home to golf and shop forgetting. There is a unique social and global similarity of our inter-generational issues. Taking a more micro symbolic-interaction view, the issues are likely to vary for each person. For Anne, it was a birthday. For others, it might be a child not being recognized for his great aide in hunting for the tribe, or a child who excels at football only to never see is parents in the grandstands even though they live a mile away, or a girl who achieves academic excellence only to have her father say it could have been an A+.

Anne’s story about her birthday shows how complex person hood of life is far more complicated than established knowledge and methodological tools. There were no methodological tools for Anne’s madness just emotional descriptions such as “simmered” and “fumed” which she used to described how her mother wronged her yet again. Which is very much a likely interracial experience that any person can identify with.

1. Choi, Anne. Happy Birthday or Whatever.

HarperCollins.