An Analysis Of Pablo Medina's 'Arrival : 1960'

Furthermore, in most cases, it may seem the United States has a system in which immigrants are not given the chance to form a bright future. In the novel, “Antonio soon found himself settling for jobs that were clearly beneath him. He stood under the baking sun at the on-ramp to the Santa Monica Freeway, selling oranges for two dollars a bag: a dollar fifty for the guy from the produce market, fifty cents for him,” (Tobar, 53). Many of the immigrants that live in the U.S. have little power that allows them to succeed. Some races have benefitted from it more than others. The Cubans, for instance, have had it much easier than most immigrants who have migrated to the United States; whereas, Antonio, a Guatemalan, had trouble finding a stable job that allowed him to sustain himself. In contrast to many other races, many Americans described Cubans as being visitors who represent, “all phases of life and professions, having an excellent level of education… More than half of their families with them, including children brought from Cuba to escape communist indoctrination in the schools,”

Richard Blanco, a famous Cuban-American poet who became the first Latin American, immigrant, and openly gay Inaugural Poet in 2013, wrote a variety of works based off his life and all the things that were going on in it. In Richard Blanco’s, “El Florida Room” and “The First Real San Giving Day”, Blanco provides the readers with a look into his personal life with information about his family and some characteristics of his life. Dealing with many different societal issues due to his culture and even his sexual orientation, Blanco describes what his life was truly like, more specifically geared towards his culture; being Cuban-American. Through his use of a chronological storytelling in his memoir and a reflection on the past in his poem,

Correspondingly, Vargas has not only immersed himself into his new culture, but learned to love it as well. He “built a career as a journalist, interviewing some of the most famous people in the country” (Vargas). Even though he is living the American dream, he is also “living a different kind of reality… in fear of being found out (Vargas).” Because of his status, it is hard to live a “normal” life. Even with all he has done to “earn” citizenship, he is still unrecognized as

“The Arrival,” by Shaun Tan, is a wordless novel that depicts the experience immigrants go through when vacating their home countries to start new in a different country. Readers can see that on the first page there is a collage of headshots from multiple people of different ethnicity and religion. The first image page of the wordless novel helps viewers get a clearer image of what the novel is about. In “The Arrival,” Shaun Tan depicts the hardships and enjoyment that immigrants experience when moving to a new country, since the piece was written in 2006, there seems to be more hardships than enjoyment when coming to the United States, which means the idea of the United States being a melting pot is flawed.

Every immigrant has a personal story, pains and joys, fears and victories, and Junot Díaz portrays much of his own story of immigrant life in “Drown”, a collection of 10 short stories. In each of his stories Diaz uses a first-person narrator who is observing others to speak on issues in the Hispanic community. Each story is related, but is a separate picture, each with its own title. The novel does not follow a traditional story arc but rather each story captures a moment in time. Diaz tells of the barrios of the Dominican Republic and the struggling urban communities of New Jersey.

In “Puerto Rican Obituary” by Pedro Pietri, the author takes his readers on a journey of the oppressive life of a Puerto Rican immigrant. He describes a vicious cycle of stagnancy in which immigrants work endlessly without reward. Hopeful every day that the American dream they once imagined would come to fruition, but instead they are continually faced with trials and turmoil on every hand. Instead of uniting as a body to work towards greatness, the immigrants grow envious of each other, focusing on what they lack instead of the blessings that they currently attain. Contrary to the ideals of early immigrants, Pietri portrays Puerto Rico to be the homeland. The ideals of early immigrants have drastically changed throughout the development of America. Petri paints a completely different picture of America throughout his poem. Early immigrants describe an America that is welcoming, with endless opportunities, and a safe haven. Despite earlier depictions of the immigrant experience, these ideals are challenged because they weren’t integrated into society, were inadequately rewarded for hard work, and were disadvantaged due to their socioeconomic status.

Through interviewing my roommate Linda Wang, I have gotten the opportunity of hearing a first-hand account of what it is like being a young immigrant living in the United States. At the age of eight, Linda, along with her father, mother, and aunt, emigrated to America. Linda’s family currently resides in Bayside, Queens and she is a student-athlete on the St. John’s women’s golf team. Linda was kind enough to share her immigration story with me so that I may use it as a manifestation of what life as an immigrant, and the immigration process itself, entails.

“Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us (p. 111).” These words, spoken by Ántonia, the protagonist of the novel ‘My Ántonia’, give light to the situation immigrants found themselves in after moving to the North America’s Western frontier. This novel reveals how immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s had to overcome numerous obstacles on the path towards ‘The American Dream’ which those native to the area did not have to face.

Dinaw Mengestu, Richard Rodriguez and Manuel Munoz are three authors that have been through and gone through a lot of pain to finaly get accepted in their societies. They are all either immigrants or children of immigrants that had trouble fitting in America’s society at the time. They struggled with language and their identities, beucase they were not original from the states and it was difficult for others to accept them for who they are. They all treated their problems differently an some tried to forget their old identeties and live as regulalr Americans others accepted themselves for being who they are, but they all found a way to deal with their issues.

Whether in the early 1900s or the present day 21st century, immigration to America was all about searching for a better life; looking for the opportunity to be successful. In the short story “How I found America” Anzia is much more oppressed in America; she is discriminated against in her work and her environment. Vargas in “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant” is given more opportunities to better himself. Both of the immigrants have a sense of having to hide themselves in America.

Immigration makes up of the United States. The life of an immigrant faces many struggles. Coming to the United States is a very difficult time for immigrant, especially when English is not their first language. In Oscar Handlin’s essay, Uprooted and Trapped: The One-Way Route to Modernity and Mark Wyman’s Coming and Going: Round Trip to America, both these essays describes the life of immigrants living in America and how they are able to make a decent amount of money to support their families. Handlin’s essay Uprooted and Trapped: The One - Way Route to Modernity explains how unskilled immigrants came to adapt to the American life working in factories to make a living. In the essay, Coming and Going: Round Trip to America, this essay describes the reality of many immigrants migrating to the United States in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Many were living and adjusting to being transnational families. Both these essays show how the influx of immigration and industrialization contributed to the making of the United States. With the support from documents 3 and 7, Thomas O’ Donnell, Immigrant Thomas O’Donnell Laments the Worker’s Plight, 1883 and A Slovenian Boy Remembers Tales of the Golden Country, 1909, these documents will explain the life of an immigrant worker in the United States. Although, the United States was portrayed as the country for a better life and a new beginning, in reality, the United

In the story “Four Stations in His Circle”, Austin Clarke reveals the negative influences that immigration can have on people through characterization of the main character, symbols such as the house that Jefferson dreams to buy and the time and place where the story takes place. The author demonstrates how immigration can transform someone to the point that they abandon their old culture, family and friends and remain only with their loneliness and selfishness.

Cristina Henriquez’, The Book of Unknown Americans, folows the story of a family of immigants adjusting to their new life in the United States of America. The Rivera family finds themselves living within a comunity of other immigrants from all over South America also hoping to find a better life in a new country. This book explores the hardships and injustices each character faces while in their home country as well as withina foreign one, the United States. Themes of community, identity, globalization, and migration are prevalent throughout the book, but one that stood out most was belonging. In each chacters viewpoint, Henriquez explores their feelings of the yearning they have to belong in a community so different than the one that they are used to.

Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, shares his life-long journey as an undocumented immigrant in his text, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” As the title suggests, Vargas attempts to convey to his audience, who likely never has and never will experience anything similar to what he has, what it is like to live as an immigrant in the United States of America. Skillfully, Vargas details the perfect number of personal stories to reach the emotional side of his audience, which is anyone who is not an immigrant. Through the use of his personal accounts Vargas is able to effectively communicate that immigrants are humans too while simultaneously proving his credibility, as he has experience and a vast amount of knowledge

Visual media excels at showing people things they haven’t seen before. For example, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, a graphic novel depicting immigration, forgos text to instead illustrate the experience of immigration. The visual he provides depict a world unlike any human beings are familiar with. This depiction of an unknown culture most accurately recreates the feelings an immigrant would experience in turn putting the observer in the shoes of an immigrant.