Pet In Their Culture example essay topic

Law 598 b is discrimination against those whose culture looks highly of eating America's so called "pets". That is the point made by Michael Kingston in the short essay "Creating a Criminal" making Kingston a "do-go oder" toward those who agree with him. This law is poorly written on the writer's part, and it would be sufficient to probably rewrite it. Unfortunately for Kingston, there are some small glitches in the way he has written his essay too. He uses unfair generalization toward other cultures, mainly because he only mentions the Vietnamese within his essay. 598 b was written to help educate those new to the country on one aspect of our American culture.

The law states that no person within California may raise a "traditional pet or companion" (Kingston, 129) for the intention of eating it. Kingston questions the meaning of "pet", and what is traditional to one culture may not be traditional to another. He goes on to say that Vietnamese Americans eat our so called "pets" because they do not regard them as a "pet" in their culture. 598 b does not protect against putting animals down, or using them in lab experiments; it just protects them from being eaten by the Vietnamese culture.

Kingston states that this is just another discriminatory ruling against Vietnamese Americans to add to a huge pile that has been made on them already. He goes on to question how this law will be enforced, and wants to know what happened to the America he used to know when any culture could come in and bring their traditions with them. He concludes that America is making more criminals than originally intended, and that this law is a "reduction of privacy" (Kingston, 130). Kingston's racist argument is weakened because he thinks that the Vietnamese Americans are the only culture within our society to eat what America calls a "pet". He creates a lack of research view toward himself, causing the reader to doubt him by stating "for the most part, the only people who eat dogs and cats are Vietnamese Americans" (Kingston, 130). Little does he know, that many Indonesian cultures, as well as citizens from Laos, consider animals like dogs and cats a delicacy.

The argument Kingston makes is an unfair dramatization toward the Vietnamese, singling them out, stating that they are the only culture that does this. He is singling out one culture (even though there are many others), doing exactly what he says the law is doing. Kingston would do well to remember that when people emigrate to this country. They come to become part of this culture. They are subconsciously agreeing to honor and respect the American culture. Regardless if they are Latino, White, Black, or Asian, anyone who has lived here a long time knows that certain things are not acceptable here.

It's not just a white man's culture who thinks that eating "pets" is wrong. Our whole "melting pot" of cultures agrees with this. Dogs and cats are regarded with respect here and are the people's companions. If someone from America came to reside in India, that person would come to know that within that culture, one does not eat cows. It is common courtesy toward the common practices of that country, to honor their beliefs. Whoever comes here to make their home should know that we do not eat these animals, and they should be respectful of that.

Despite these weaknesses, Kingston is right when criticizing the vagueness of the law. Kingston makes a valid point that the law does not specify a particular "pet", and also that many cultures have different "traditional pets". This makes the law very vague, and it would benefit from a good rewriting: telling what is acceptable and what is not with the American culture. This essay makes some valid points but unfortunately it is not toward the original purpose of the essay.

The assumption that Vietnamese are the only people who participate in the consumption of "pets" is incorrect on Kingston's part. When a person comes here from another place, it is their responsibility to flow with the ways of that culture that they are residing in. It does help us to understand that laws need to be clear to be able to serve a purpose. Walking into a pet store and knowing that a dog or cat may not be safe and may not live a happy life due to the fact that they can be taken and eaten is sickening; the American culture has adopted it to be that way.