Humor + Argument = Success

In "The 'F Word'" by Firoozeh Dumas, she uses humor to build her argument that immigrants' names are part of who they are and we should take the time to learn them. This is an appeal to pathos. I feel like without humor, Dumas' account would lack real emotion and lose its purpose. The humor brings her account to life and shows how she is a real person. It would be hard to empathize with her if she had not made us laugh while also explaining her problem to us.

For example, the humor that stuck with me the most is the story of her at a doctors office and the nurse calls her name as "Fritzy Dumbass" This is really humorous and the author has a great attitude about it. If I was in her situation, I would get very embarrassed and angry at the nurse for her mispronunciation. Instead, Dumas shows how she endured the situation because she was used to people being unable to say her name. I, as an American, want to challenge this by not mocking other peoples' cultures, because it is simply ignorant. We, as Americans, should stop seeing each other by their differences and start seeing us as the people who make up these united states. This will start to end racism and once we end racism we can stop the cycle of the culture of power and give everyone in this world a fair chance at success.

What struck me the most was Dumas' sense of cooperation with the people who made fun of her. Yes, she realized it was difficult to be an immigrant and have an foreign name but, she embraced her culture and knew that it was a part of who she was. She knew that one day, people would learn to just accept each others' differences. Her conclusion of the mother who called her "F Word" shows that she really did not care of that woman's ignorance. She accounts that she moved to New York, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in America, and that she was eventually going to have to get used to foreign names. This is the whole purpose of her argument. That immigrants are not just going to stop immigrating and we are going to have to get used to, and even appreciate their culture that they are bringing with them.