During the Civil Rights Movement, many people often struggled with their identity, who they were, and what they believed . There was a conflict within the African-American community, a conflict between the old world and the new world, the world before civil rights and the new world of equality for all. In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," Dee struggles with who she was, who she is, and who she wants to be. Dee's mother, Mrs. Johnson, is the narrator who represents the old world, while Dee represents the new American culture. Walker uses Dee's caesura to show how hybridity, or being composed of two or more cultures, causes a struggle of assimilation between people. After attending college, Dee considers herself to be of a higher social class than her mother and Maggie, her sister, which causes major problems in the composition of the family. Soon this forces Dee and Mrs. Johnson to make decisions that suggest assimilation is occurring within Dee and that she is no longer a true member of the family. Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" focuses on the oppressed and the oppressor to critique the idea that the only path to happiness is to abandon one's hybridity. Dee was supposed to return from college to Augusta to visit her mother and sister, but neither. of them knew what to expect from Dee. Mrs. Johnson and the church had raised enough money for Dee to attend college, which was Dee's first step into the new world as a member of American culture. The church helping mom pay for college shows mom's true financial situation and how separated she is from educated people or her daughter. College and education give her an identity beyond just being black; she is part of a new society. His mother and sister had little education...... middle of paper ... in other countries trying to impose democracy on them. Once Wangero or Dee had forgotten their native culture, they were oblivious to the beliefs and cultures of their native heritage. She assimilated and wanted to do the things of American culture. She did this by ignoring her sister, changing her name, and wanting to prevent things that represented her family's culture from being used "every day" and putting them in the closet. Through Dee, Alice Walker also proposes that just because you are educated doesn't mean you are enlightened, in fact you could be wrong. Dee's hybridity led her to choose American culture; assimilation had occurred. Works Cited Walker, Alice. “Daily use.” Literature: reading to write. Elizabeth Howells, IL: Pearson, 2011. Akers, Stephanie. Culture and identity. February 15, 2014, Microsoft PowerPoint file.