Ethnocentrism can be defined as “regarding one’s own race or culture as supreme to others.” Unfortunately, minority groups living in the United States are under the impression they must conform to the American ways in order to succeed. As a result the ramifications of ethnocentrism in the United States have caused minorities to change in order to “fit in” with society. In Langston Hughes poem “Theme For English B,” Hughes recalls a time when …showed first 75 words of 779 total…

…showed last 75 words of 779 total…were too soft or nonexistent.” Kingston felt that she and the other Chinese girls in the class had “invented an American-feminine speaking personality…” Perhaps the biggest consequences of ethnocentrism can be seen in Richard Rodriguez’s “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood.” Rodriguez was born of Spanish speaking Mexican American family living in San Francisco. He discusses how he “gave up his family language when he entered grammar school and the English speaking world.”