The results of Wal-Mart
In My Year of Meats Ruth L. Ozeki introduces Jane Takagi-Little as the director of My America Wife a television show intended to introduce American meat to the Japanese. Throughout her experiences traveling though much of small town America Jane experiences many cultural phenomena and has the chance to witness the good and the bad that come about from it.
Consumer driven America is one cultural phenomenon that can be seen throughout Jane’s travels. This consumerism is most clearly represented though the Wal-Mart chain that is located in nearly every middle to low income, small town that Jane and her crew visits. Wal-Mart feeds on the small town making everyone there nearly dependent on it disregarding the small non-chain stores that they put out of business and then pay less than satisfactory wages. Jane spoke about the small towns that these Wal-Marts were in and expressed that each person living in these towns spent their days at the store. Not only was the Wal-Mart important to the members of the town, but also to the Japanese crew, there for only a few days of filming. “To a Japanese person, Wal-Mart is awesome, the capitalist equivalent of the wide-open spaces and endless horizons of the American geographical frontier” (35). Wal-Mart offers nearly anything that could be desired in a small town and at the cheapest price in town.
The extreme of Wal-Mart can be seen through the experiences of the Bukowskys. The Bukowsky’s daughter was hit buy a Wal-Mart delivery truck and paralyzed. Wal-Mart then refused to give Mrs. Bukowsky so time off to care for her daughter and then refused to fire her so she could collect some unemployment. This refusal came from a concern of making the store look bad, while disregarding the care for their associate and her family.
This disregard for people in the pursuit of money brought about another social phenomenon, and that is one of care for one another without prejudice. After the Bukowsky’s ordeal the whole town came together to help the family. Since neither parent was working the town’s members would bring food and stop by in shifts to spend time with the daughter on the request of her mother.
Each new cultural phenomenon is in some way dependant on anther phenomenon. None can stand alone and while there is many negative affects associate with many phenomena some bring about positive effects.
Consumer driven America is one cultural phenomenon that can be seen throughout Jane’s travels. This consumerism is most clearly represented though the Wal-Mart chain that is located in nearly every middle to low income, small town that Jane and her crew visits. Wal-Mart feeds on the small town making everyone there nearly dependent on it disregarding the small non-chain stores that they put out of business and then pay less than satisfactory wages. Jane spoke about the small towns that these Wal-Marts were in and expressed that each person living in these towns spent their days at the store. Not only was the Wal-Mart important to the members of the town, but also to the Japanese crew, there for only a few days of filming. “To a Japanese person, Wal-Mart is awesome, the capitalist equivalent of the wide-open spaces and endless horizons of the American geographical frontier” (35). Wal-Mart offers nearly anything that could be desired in a small town and at the cheapest price in town.
The extreme of Wal-Mart can be seen through the experiences of the Bukowskys. The Bukowsky’s daughter was hit buy a Wal-Mart delivery truck and paralyzed. Wal-Mart then refused to give Mrs. Bukowsky so time off to care for her daughter and then refused to fire her so she could collect some unemployment. This refusal came from a concern of making the store look bad, while disregarding the care for their associate and her family.
This disregard for people in the pursuit of money brought about another social phenomenon, and that is one of care for one another without prejudice. After the Bukowsky’s ordeal the whole town came together to help the family. Since neither parent was working the town’s members would bring food and stop by in shifts to spend time with the daughter on the request of her mother.
Each new cultural phenomenon is in some way dependant on anther phenomenon. None can stand alone and while there is many negative affects associate with many phenomena some bring about positive effects.
posted by Robin C at 9/10/2006 08:42:00 PM
3 Comments:
I agree..every phenomenon is related to each in one way or another. How Wal-Mart treated the Bukowsky family was horrible. It showed coldness of the corporate world. It is sad to see people chose money over life.
Its funny, most people know Wal-Mart is bad for America, but everyone still shops there, myself included. How can you beat their prices?
I hate walmarts. I think they are shady and unsanitary and kinda trashy, but not going to lie, i've been there several times throughout these last couple years of college to pick up necessity items that are cheaper there than anywhere else.
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