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Shteyngart's "Sixty-Nine Cents" and Kahakauwila's This Is Paradise: A Global Identity to

Overcome a Divisive Culture
Culture in the modern age of globalization is something that has become a divisive issue.
Whether in parts of Southeast Asia, conflicts in the Middle East, or even racial issues in civilized
countries such as the United States, culture is often a central part of the major conflicts of this
generation. Often, these conflicts are caused by a cultural clash between two or more cultural
identities; the constant clashing of culture could be eliminated, however, if a new global identity
were created in place of local cultural identities. This paper will analyze two stories that have to
deal with cultural issues and argue how they could have been avoided if a global identity existed
in place of the cultural identities that are at the center of the conflicts within the story. As
exemplified in This is Paradise, a novel by Kristiana Kahakauwila, and "Sixty-Nine Cents", a
personal essay by Gary Shteyngart, culture is often a source of conflict that is faced both
internally and externally. In both these writings, the characters stuck in their own cultural
conflicts reach resolutions through negative events that end with scenes of unity or acceptance.
In Kahakauwila's This is Paradise and Shteyngart's "Sixty-Nine Cents" cultural identity is the
prime source of conflict due to the clashing of other cultural identities and this could be avoided
if a global identity were allowed to assert itself and overtake that of the local identity.
Before proceeding further into this discussion it is necessary to identify key terms that
will arise within this paper and define them. First and foremost is the idea of culture which is a
simple one: culture is the way one lives and views the world as shaped by the people around
them. Therein cultural identity is the particular culture or subculture, defined as a cultural group
within a larger cultural group, that an individual identifies with. The final definition that must be
understood is the idea of a global identity. The phrase "global identity" refers to the idea that

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instead of identifying with a culture, such as "Proud to be Hawaiian," the individuals would
identify as a human being that is a citizen of a global society, meaning "I am proud to be human."
This would eliminate the need for labels based upon the local area from which one was born and,
in a sense, present the idea that we are all connected as human beings that exist upon this world
together.
It is also beneficial to note that the problem of cultural conflict is not something new as
cultural clashes have existed for as long as more than one culture has. Leigh Cunnigham,
assistant director for strategic initiatives at the National Academic Advising Association, writes,
"Lack of understanding about what constitutes cultural identity, and how we are affected by the
various aspects of our worldview, can be a source of conflict and a great hindrance in the
development of productive relationships" (Cunnigham). This idea of cultural identity, moreover
the lack of understanding between two separate cultural identities, has been a source of conflict
for time immemorial. Local cultures will always clash as culture is the single most deciding
factor in the way in which one views the world. A global identity replacing this idea of local
cultural identity would help to prevent these local cultural clashes as they would solidify a single
world view in a greater scope than those of local cultural views.
With definitions established and an explanation of cultural conflict made, it is now
necessary to examine the texts that will be utilized as a basis for the argument towards a global
identity. The first story is Kristiana Kahakauwila's This is Paradise: stories which is a collection
of short stories that give a glimpse into the world of Hawai'i that is seen once the rose-colored
glasses that are "paradise" is removed. From this collection of short stories, this essay will
analyze one of the three stories from the first section which is titled "This is Paradise". This
particular story describes a single day in the life of three local Hawaiian women who have a

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particular fondness for surfing. Their daily routine seems to consist of surfing early in the
morning, an action called "Dawn Patrol", and surfing in the late afternoon just before the sun
goes down. At night they gather at a bar called the "Lava Lounge" where they laugh the day off
and enjoy themselves; tonight, however, they have an incident with a tourist where they try to
warn her about a man she was with that went to prison. Susan, the tourist, shrugs them off
saying, "'You girls really don't want visitors to have a good time, do you?'" (Kahakauwila 28).
This becomes a point of distrust between the women and they go their separate ways with Susan
leaving with the man who was formerly a prisoner. The next day, as the women go to the beach
for their daily early morning surfing, they find a crowd gathered outside one of the hotels by the
beach and find out that Susan was murdered the night before. The surfer women regret this
incident and are then placed in a position of asking themselves "What if?".
The aforementioned story is the perfect example for why a global identity is required as
the clash between local Hawaiian culture and the tourist culture surrounding Susan lead to a
death. The inherent problem with local culture, as opposed to a global identity, is the
miscommunication, fear, and distrust which ultimately and inevitably leads to conflict. Only after
the death of Susan do the local women realize that had they handled the situation that occurred
the night before differently then Susan may have still been alive. However the women's cultural
identities engaged first, before they could think about the consequences of their actions, and bred
an atmosphere of distrust long before a commonality could be established between them and
Susan. Thus, this story represents the worst fate that can befall cultural conflict, which is death,
and why a global identity must supersede the local cultural identity. If a global identity were in
place prior to this incident then the similarities between the group of women and Susan would
have been known from the beginning and focused upon rather than the differences that one is

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forced to examine when looking through the lens of local cultural identity. Kahakauwila writes,
"Throughout the day we argue over Susan, acting as if we knew enough to speak for her" (44).
This quote lists the inevitable pain that comes with cultural conflict. Hindsight is always the
clearest picture that one can see and the fact that the women realized they could have done more
than they did leads to the pain and regret that follows the clashing of cultures. The women realize
that if they had not presented themselves in the manner that they did merely because Susan was
not one of them, they could have potentially saved her life. This strengthens the thought that a
global identity is necessary for human beings to live together peacefully as it would provide a
common ground for all human beings regardless of race, nation, or creed. By establishing a
global cultural identity that supersedes a local cultural identity, the similarities of all human
beings would be easily shared and create a world with much more room for understanding and
compassion between human beings.
In an essay titled "Ideology and Race in American History", Barbara Fields, a noted
academic and professor of history, writes, "It is ideological context that tells people which details
to notice, which to ignore, and which to take for granted in translating the world around them
into ideas about the world" (Fields 146). Race and culture are also something very intimately tied
together and so the previous sentence relates perfectly to Kahakauwila's novel. Local culture
teaches people to identify the differences between themselves and other cultures as a means of
protection against those that would do them harm. In this "ideological context" the people
involved are looking for all the details that are necessary to protect themselves from the dangers
of the world around them. Thus the local cultural identity that persists in the modern world has
become one of increasing paranoia and mistrust as people look for those that are similar to them
and consistently alienate anyone who has the audacity to hold a world view different then their

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own. Local cultural identity does more to perpetuate differences than it does to celebrate
similarities which leads to an atmosphere of suspicion and doubt whereas a global identity would
be one that works to ascertain the similarities that are shared between all human beings while
putting very little emphasis on the differences that do more to separate humanity than unite it. In
this respect, a global identity would be an ideological goal designed around acknowledging the
similarities of people while choosing to ignore the differences that separate different sections of
humanity. Therein, a call for a global identity is not merely a call to forsake local cultural
identity but it is a call for all peoples to strive and work for a unified world in which all the
different nations and peoples of the world do not need to worry about the details that separate
humanity but can focus on the selfsame struggles that all endure during their time on earth.
However while Kahakauwila's story presents the worst case scenario for the clashing of
cultures, Shteyngart presents a bad but much better resolution for the cultural conflict that
occurred in his own life. The personal essay, "Sixty-Nine Cents", by Shteyngart describes an
event in his childhood that revolves around a conflict between his native-born culture and his
new culture as an immigrant in America. He writes about a trip that he and his parents went on
with another family; they stopped at a McDonald's along the way which made Shteyngart excited
as he believed they were going to eat there. To his chagrin, they brought their own food but only
went there to use the free napkins and utensils. Shteyngart, embarrassed by their behavior, sat as
far away from his parents and their friends as he could. In his pocket, Shteyngart had sixty-nine
cents which was enough to buy him his own hamburger and fries but instead he merely sat away
from his parents and opted not to buy the food nor would he eat with them. The problem that is
introduced in this story is the conflict between Shteyngart's native culture and his new American
culture. Shteyngart himself revealed the benefit of assimilation in cultural conflicts as he chose

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to now wholly accept his new American culture but also refused to deny his native culture. By
refusing to identify as either culture completely, he brought balance to and ended the conflict that
would have inevitably occurred had he not done so. Regardless, the issues that arose in
Shteyngart's story would never had occurred if a global identity were in place over those two
local cultural identities that caused the conflict in the first place. If a global cultural identity had
been in place, then this issue of having to choose between two separate cultures would have been
resolved as the superseding global identity would had manipulated Shteyngart into a neutral
setting that would not require him to sacrifice either food or happiness.
On the other hand, another key part of Shteyngart's story is the fact that there was a girl
with their family friends that was about Shteyngart's age. She had felt the same way that he did
but did not protest their behavior in the same way that Shteyngart himself did, instead she sat and
ate lunch with the family. He writes, "the girl, my coeval, sullen like me but with a hint of pliant
equanimity" (Shteyngart). What Shteyngart is trying to say with this is that the girl merely
accepted her situation and would not rebel in the same way that Shteyngart did. This could be
explained away for a variety of reasons, but given the historical and cultural context of the time
period which would a young Jewish girl in the 1980s, women were still expected to behave as
subservient or, at the very least, below men. Thus, it was almost required for his female
companion to do as her family bid which leads to the "pliant equanimity" meaning flexible
calmness of her mind. She had accepted her fate and the fact that she was expected to behave in a
certain way. This idea of how she was expected to behave and the actions she was expected to
take is deeply and intimately related to culture. In a periodical titled Signs: Journal of Women in
Culture and Society Signs a woman named Nancy Chodorow writes, " That each person creates
her own personal-cultural gender has implications for feminist theory. Feminist theory is right

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that gender cannot be seen apart from culture" (518). In this article, Chodorow mainly writes
about feminist theory and how gender is involved with that idea; feminist theory is an extension
of feminism that goes into philosophical and theoretical explanations and discussions. However,
she makes sure to note how the ideas of culture and gender are intimately tied in that they cannot
be seen apart from one another. Gender roles vary vastly from culture to culture and in the case
of Shteyngart's story it is clearly visible that the way he was behaving was acceptable, if
outlandish, but the way that the girl was behaving was entirely expected of her. This is another
reason that a global identity must be established, it is necessary to facilitate a growing equality
between men and women. Though men and women will never be truly equal due to certain
biological limitations, the treatment and men and women is surely something that could be
standardized. Through the creation of a global identity, the gender roles that both men and
women are forced into through local cultural identities could be easily done away with and a
treatment worthy of all human beings could be established throughout the world.
James Banks, the Director of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of
Washington, wrote on an article for the School of Education at John Hopkins University titled "
Educating Global Citizens in a Diverse World". In this article he writes about the challenges
facing educators as they attempt to create a world that is diverse yet uniform. A quote from the
article states:
Cultural, ethnic, racial, language, and religious diversity exists in most nations in the
world. One of the challenges to diverse democratic nation-states is to provide
opportunities for different groups to maintain aspects of their community cultures while
at the same time building a nation in which these groups are structurally included and to
which they feel allegiance. (Banks)

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The problem presented in this idea is that in order to build a community that everyone feels
linked to yet is diverse enough that they are comfortable is to build a community in which no one
truly gets what they desire. This relates directly to Shteyngart's story as it is based around the
idea of assimilation where no one truly gets to have a community exactly as they want. Again,
the problem is that this leads to a world where no one is truly happy as the struggle for cultural
supremacy will still persist in this precariously balanced system. By accommodating all cultures,
the emphasis is still placed on the local cultural identity and not wholly placed on a global
cultural identity. The mere fact that banks makes reference to a "nation" and not to a global
community is one that still works to create sectioned off pieces of society that strive towards the
goal of a national entity and not a global entity. While nations are required, the only thing that
national identities would accomplish is gathering groups of people into larger cultural groups that
would still clash with one another. Shteyngart and Kahakauwila both show this as Shteyngart is
stuck in between the national American identity that he craves and the local cultural identity that
his parents hold; Kahakauwila, on the other hand, shows this through the interactions of Susan
and the local Hawaiian women where they are stuck in a cultural conflict despite being a part of
the same nation and thus national identity. A global identity would work towards supremacy even
over that of the national identity by placing the focus not on a cultural body or a political body
but rather the earth which every human being lives on.
Psychology often looks at culture and cultural influences as it often falls within their
fields of study. In a journal article written by Alex Johnson and Dahra Williams, the following
can be found "The first domain of multicultural competence involves increasing awareness of
ones sociocultural conditioning, which has resulted in explicit and implicitly learned biases,
worldviews, stereotypes, and beliefs" (Johnson, Williams). The next two stages mentioned in the

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study are knowledge and skills. The fact that individuals are shaped by their surroundings only
warrants a call for a global identity even more. In Shteyngart's story, his own biases and
worldviews lead to him refusing both his new American culture and his old Russo-Jewish culture
in favor of neither of the two. In Kahakauwila's story, the stereotypes and beliefs of both the
local women and the tourist girl, Susan, lead to a general atmosphere of mistrust that leads to the
death of an innocent young girl. In both cases, the situation could have been avoided if a global
identity were in place and if a global identity were to be in place then, as Johnson and Williams
mentioned in the aforesaid quote, one would need to be aware of one's own sociocultural
conditioning. To achieve a global identity, humanity would need to recognize its own learned
biases, worldviews, stereotypes, and beliefs before addressing them and working towards
morphing them into a global identity created from these changed views.
Although this essay has spent much time focused on the negative aspects that lead to a
call for a global identity, there is a light-side in that many opportunities are arising in the modern
world for a global identity to take hold. As was written in an article in the International Journal
of Psychology, "As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, exposure to global cultures
affords individuals opportunities to develop global identities" (Reysen, Katzarska-Miller). The
world is constantly changing and with the advent and subsequent popularity of the internet,
people are being exposed to new cultures and new peoples every single day. The worlds of
Shteyngart and Kahakauwila are ones that serve as warnings as to the ways in which one should
not behave and the consequences should they behave that way. Opportunities to shift towards a
global identity are created everyday as more and more people come into contact with one
another. Shteyngart and Kahakauwila both paint pictures of a world without a global identity and
forewarn of the problems faced by those who think only of the local cultural influence. Perhaps,

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unknowingly, they too have called for this global identity through their works which depict the
problems inherent with local cultural identities and the constant clashing of cultures.
As stated earlier, in Kahakauwila's This Is Paradise: stories and Shteyngart's "Sixty-Nine
Cents", problems arise due to cultural clashing that reveal a weakness in local cultural identity
that can only be solved through the creation of a global identity. The problem with this
conception of local cultural identity is that dehumanizes people in the sense that instead of
qualifying them as human beings, it quantifies them as statistics on a paper. The grand global
identity that this essay calls for is one that does not wholly eliminate the local cultural identity,
but rather calls for that to be a memory of the past in favor of a cultural identity, recognized
globally, that creates a world worthy of human beings whom are referred to as human beings.
Culture is necessary, and this paper is by no means arguing for its complete dissolution, rather it
is calling for culture to extend to a higher plane of thought that extends past cultural boundaries
or national borders; it is calling for a culture that brings human beings together under the banner
of one universe, one world, one humanity, one spirit.

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Works Cited
Banks, James A. "Educating Global Citizens in a Diverse World." John Hopkins School of
Education. John Hopkins University, 2003. Web. 9 Dec. 2015.
Chodorow, Nancy J. "Gender as a Personal and Cultural Construction." Signs: Journal of Women
in Culture and Society Signs 20.3 (1995): 516. Print.
Cunnigham, Leigh. "Multicultural." NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources.
Kansas State University, 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2015.
Fields, Barbara J. "Ideology and Race in American History." Region, Race, and Reconstruction:
Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward. By C. Vann Woodward. Ed. J. Morgan. Kousser
and James M. McPherson. New York: Oxford UP, 1982. 143-77. Print.
Johnson, Alex, and Dahra Jackson Williams. "White Racial Identity, Color-blind Racial
Attitudes, and Multicultural Counseling Competence." Cultural Diversity and Ethnic
Minority Psychology 21.3 (2015): 440-49. Web.
Kahakauwila, Kristiana. "This Is Paradise." This Is Paradise: Stories. New York: Crown Group,
2013. 9-46. Print.
Reysen, Stephen, and Iva Katzarska-Miller. "A Model of Global Citizenship: Antecedents and
Outcomes." International Journal of Psychology 48.5 (2013): 858-70. Print.
Shteyngart, Gary. "Sixty-Nine Cents." Multicultural Literature in the United States Today.
Washington, DC: United States Department of State, Bureau of International Information
Programs, 2009. EJournal USA: Multicultural Literature in the United States Today.
United States Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs, 04
Feb. Web. 26 Nov. 2015.