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Personal Discrimination Experience
Naomi Nakatani


There are many different kinds of bias in the world. I thought that there is no discrimination before I actually had discrimination. I have felt discrimination many times in my life. Most of my experiences are from when I visited the U.S. Before my experiences, I thought Westerners, especially Americans, think about discrimination more than Japanese or other Asians. However, this is not true. I am going to talk about my experiences with race discrimination and language discrimination in my essay.

Firstly, I experienced race discrimination for the first time because I am Japanese. When I visited Utah, I stayed at a hotel. There was big hot pool that every guest can use. My mother and I went there, and one old lady already there. She saw us, and she said" They are Jap so they shouldn't be here." I was shocked, because we paid the same cost as her. And also we were guests of the hotel. If she dose not like Japanese that is not our problem. She just should not be mixed up about Japanese or Japan.

Secondly, I have an experience about language discrimination, because I could not speak English well. This was the first time that I was cheated by someone. When I visited Hawaii I went to a small shop. I bought magnets that totaled about 18 dollars. However, the cashier said that the total was more than 30 dollars. Therefore, I paid the charge. At that time, I could not speak English, so I just paid. After I got back to my hotel, I asked my uncle and he said, "the casher knew that you can not speak English, so they got extra money from you." I was very angry, because I thought I was mocked by whites. I know in Japan there is language discrimination, too, but we can not speak another language so we just ignore them. I know it makes them sad and uncomfortable. However, we do not cheat them. I know that different languages are difficult. Therefore, I think it is difficult to eliminate language discrimination. However, cheating is not good. Nobody should cheat others with language discrimination.

Finally, I thought, that all races are equal before I felt discrimination. I thought that everyone thinks everyone must treat equally. However, some people are still treat differently. I think we must treat everyone equally even thought people speak different languages or have different colors of skin. In Japan there is discrimination often, but we do not think about it seriously. We should think about it more. If everyone think about it more seriously, discrimination will slowly disappear. I think that nobody should be hurt by any kind of discrimination.


© KCC - ESOL 197-0 Students, Summer 2005