Culture Theme in All We Have Left by Wendy Mills Essay Example

The theme of, All we have left, by Wendy mills is that we should all recognize and respect our culture. This is the theme because both Alia and Jesse don’t respect cultures in general, including theirs and others.

One way the theme is expressed is by showing how Alia felt about praying. For example, the author states that “Allahu Akbar….Peace seems to flow into me…” (Mills 13). This implies that Alia found peace when she prayed to her god, so she respected her culture. In later parts of the text, she uses this to help her survive in the towers. This connects with the theme because later on, she learned to respect her culture.

The author demonstrates the theme by showing critical situations later on where the characters were caught. Culture celebration is the survival tip for all characters. 

The text states,” Today, this is the day you choose to wear your scarf”(Mills 39)

This expresses the idea that Alia’s mother believed Alia doesn’t respect her culture enough, and she’s only doing it to please her parents. This causes Alia to be in a life-or-death situation later on. If Alia’s mother had recognized her thoughts for embracing her culture, then Alia wouldn’t have even been in the towers. This forms with the theme as well because she feels a stronger bond with her parents because of her sudden cultural awareness. 

Lastly, the author portrays the theme by showing how the character’s ignorance of her culture resulted in her in a bad position. The author states that “I nervously finger the scarf that covers my hair and draped loosely around my shoulders” (Mills 39). This illustrates that Alia is wearing her scarf in disinterest and without pride in her culture. In the towers, she gets a lot of bad looks because of her scarf. Alia wearing her scarf in disinterest connects to the theme because the theme is to embrace your culture, but she feels ashamed of her culture then.

Some may say that the stronger theme is respecting other’s cultures, however respecting one’s own culture will remain the strongest. This is because Alia seemed to find peace when praying and respecting her own god/culture, not others. Her peace helps her survive in the story. In the beginning, she gets into a quarrel with her mom, and when she prayed, she found peace. With that, she had a clearer mindset to escape the towers. 

To summarize, the strongest theme in, All We Have Left, is to respect one’s own culture. In the beginning parts, she did her regular prayer and found peace when she argued with her parents. Sometimes Alia felt embarrassed when wearing her scarf, and that’s when she got a lot of self-doubts. She didn’t represent her culture, so she didn’t feel “full” as a Muslim.

Everyone can embrace their culture and move on, with a feeling of satisfaction leaving a trace in them for important situations, just like Alia felt when she was stuck in the towers.