An Immigrant Journey Personal Response

Immigration is a heavy topic to address, but the authors of these articles have a way of putting a human face to these stories that help make the article more personal and understandable. In the article “In Trek North, First Lure Is Mexico’s Other Line,” the author talks about the story of an immigrant woman who lost her leg while on her way to America. The author begins to explain that the immigrant woman was trying to find work in America so she could support her four year old daughter back home. Archibold, author of “In Trek North, First Lure Is Mexico’s Other Line,” says, “[the woman] made it to Mexico and onto the train. But after it departed there were cries of “Migra!” — the immigration police — and a scramble that sent her tumbling under the train,” (Archibold 36.) The woman lost her leg, but all she could think about was staying alive for her four year old daughter. This story that archibold plants in the reader’s mind lets the reader understand the reason for why immigrants are so resilient into coming to America. The author for “The Heartache of an Immigrant Family” did the same thing as archibold. Sonia Nazario, author of “The Heartache of an Immigrant Family,” began to tell the story of Lourdes and her children. Sonia explains that, “Lourdes Pineda was the single mother of a 5-year-old

In the novel Enrique’s Journey, Sonia Nazario demonstrates the onerous journey of illegal immigrants. Sonia Nazario aims for the readers to make them understand what most of the immigrants go through during their journey to the United States. By appealing to ethos and pathos throughout the book, Sonia Nazario portrays the path that Enrique undergoes to reunite with his mother.

It was a wonderful eye-opening experience to interview Carmen Anton, a Spanish immigrant for this project. I learned so many things about how she arrived in American as a small child with only her sister by her side and her strive to become American. The emotional struggles of Carmen and her sister, Elena, were real and I didn’t realize it was that emotionally draining to come to a new country. Her experience showed me how hard it is to fit into a new society knowing absolutely nothing about the world she was dropped into. The fact that she flew here with her younger sister and then live for three months without her parents to guide her in this unfamiliar setting, shows me how strong and brave Carmen was at the young age of eight. When she first came, she assumed it would be like

He also creates a very strong and intimate bond with other immigrants throughout the entire paper. He used pathos by telling the story of his own immigration, of the day he was brought to America, and of having to jump through certain loops to stay under the radar. He discusses having to lie to friends and coworkers and not being able to obtain a driver’s license or job without going to the extremes. By laying out every obstacle he had to jump over he immediately creates credibility and a link between him and other

This characterization gives a bigger meaning to the dangerous journey taken by immigrants to cross these socially constructed borders and brings meaning to immigrants as people, and not just as objects. The film shows the landscape of Honduras, people working in the fields, how children learn in school, soccer playing as a pastime and other visual occurrences that expose the viewer to the daily life of a Honduran citizen. The personification of Yohan being from Honduras, being father of three kids, a husband, a son, and a worker in his community, shows that his identity does not just amount to one negative connotation that is perceived out of ignorance and xenophobic principles. With Yohan as a real-life example, it motivates individuals to see that migrants expose themselves to dangers because of their family and goals. Yohan is not just a number or a name, but a person with a dream and a background—which provides a further representation of immigrants as people. This depiction gives immigrants a contextual background, gives them an identity through their “homeland.”

Studying to be a physician requires lots of effort and time. To an immigrant like me, I tried to manage my studies, volunteer work, and adjusting to a new culture at the same time. I like to stick with my plans, and it has always been my plan to enter medical school on 2018. However, my road to entering medical school didn’t come as easy to me. After transferring to University, two of my close family passed away.

The play Distracted by Lisa Loomer talks about a 9 year old boy who has trouble learning in school. He screams at his parents and the teacher suspects the boy may have ADHD. The mom received some advice from her friends and the psychiatrist suggests Ritalin. The father, on the other hand,disagrees. There is a family conflict between the mom and dad. Then, in the other speaker series I attended was Immigrant nation. It is a documentary film directed by Esau Melendaz. Its primary focus was about an undocumented immigrant who was deported back to her country. She refused to go back and was forced to stay in an asylum or one year. As a result,she began the immigration reform movement. People of whom were from different cultures supported her. The third Speaker series, I attended, was Working for our political environment and Personal Health by Jill Stein. There, Dr. Stein pointed the dysfunctional ways of the political system. She advocated for proper attention for these problems such as: free education, healthy food and a pollution free environment. The final event was the Transformative Social Justice through Radical Science Fiction by Adrennie Brown. The speech was mainly about change that could be brought upon the world through sci-fi . She talked about, social, racial and sex justice. After listening to these events, it made me realize that it’s every individual responsibility to bring change to our community.

Before introducing any major events, or analysis, it’s important to note that this autobiographical work was only made possible with the aid of written documentation, and tales passed on from the family and the community. This is imperative because a great portion of the piece focuses on events that Edwidge didn’t experience first-hand, so she heavily stresses on the details being re-surfaced through friends and family to complete a holistic emigration story. Family history and the involvement of cherishing family moments is often an overlooked form of communication, but without this, this and many other important minority stories would have never been complied in a way where we can now discuss them in a culturally-reflective academic setting, like this course.

Shaun Tan depicts the immigrant experience through the graphic novel, The Arrival. Tan sets many emotions and thoughts in motion, without using any words. Tan depicts the many challenges immigrants face when venturing to a foreign land for the first time. This graphic novel depict the immigrant experience in a very effective way. Tan does so by using many different methods to demonstrate this experience, the strange language, strange surrounds, and unfamiliar people, are some of the most prominent. While the immigrant story is often one riddled with struggle, they too have times of great joy and friendship, which is something Tan also effectively demonstrates. The New York Times had this to say about Tans novel “The Arrival” tells not an immigrant’s story, but the immigrant’s story.” I agree with this statement full-heartedly, The Arrival, although focused around one central character can tell the story of thousands of immigrants throughout the spread of time.

2) Many early films, and even films today, use what is called Freytag's Pyramid. Freytag’s Pyramid refers to the way a film is structured narratively, creating a similar pattern among the beginning, middle, and end of most films. I believe that The Immigrant mostly complies with this structure. Typically, a movie’s narrative using Freytag’s Pyramid will be laid out in a way that starts with a exposition, where the characters, scene, and mood is introduced. The Immigrant happens to comply with the pyramid on this point. The film opens with a shot of a ship, then continues on to show a rolling boat, its seasick passengers, and Charlie Chaplin’s comedic character. Most everyone aboard is sick except Charlie, and a few others. However, We don’t quite get much detail on the characters backgrounds, other than they are obviously immigrants from another country. Next, usually an inciting incident would occur that would trigger a conflict. When eating in the ship's dining room, charlie looks up from his table where a girl standing that he shows much interest in, and gives his seat to her. I personally believe this moment is the inciting incident that drives the rest of the story. Charlie’s drive to “get the girl” ends up causing him to give her all of his money after her mother had her money stolen. Later, after everyone is dispersed onto land, Charlie is left with no money. However, he finds a coin on the ground and decides to spend it on a meal in a nearby restaurant. Eventually, he spots the girl that was on the ship with him, and offers her a meal. Eventually, the scene shows a man being beat up and kicked out of the restaurant for being 5 cents short on his bill. Later, the waiter brings Charlie his bill, and as charlie reaches into his pocket for the coin he found and realizes the hole in his pocket. This could be seen as rising action, the next part of the pyramid. This moment escalates the conflict of not having money, since now Charlie is in clear danger. Tension rises as many minutes pass of Charlie stalling by ordering more food, and the waiter growing impatient with him. At one point, he even finds the coin again and the waiter

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.

With the settlement of first immagrants to America, this has been the phrase in which they preach. I seemed to those from an outside perspective of America, that this was the place to be. This was no exception for my grandfather. His valuable lessons of dedication, persistence and passion have shaped me into the person that I have become.

In the movie, the director Emanuele Crialese focuses on how the journey is just as important as its destination. This theme of transition creates a mysterious aura around their final destination and the idea of what America is like. However, when we reach the end of our journey with the immigrants, we realize America is never shown. Looking back on the journey, every part of the process is shown, but there is no sign of the 'new world' they have traveled all this way for. Even when they arrive in their new land, America still cannot be seen. Fog covers the horizon, hindering their view of the land and, more importantly, the Stature of Liberty. Starting off their journey with feelings of hope and faith of future good fortune soon turns to exasperation

Overall I think the actors and everyone involved in the making of this play did a very good job, even though I liked the performance of some actors better than others. The fact that this translation of the play was a more modern version original play made it more fun to watch according to me. Unfortunately, the fact that I was not able to fully understand the actors’ dialog throughout the play made it less entertaining and agreeable for me to

‘Foreign,’ written by Carol Ann Duffy, is a poem depicting the perspective of an immigrant worker who lives in unfamiliar surroundings and narrates their experiences. In this dramatic monologue, Duffy uses language and themes in effective ways that allow readers to interpret the different themes and ideas to highlight the persona’s sense of confusion, feelings, nostalgia, and many more. Through the use of literary devices, regular structure and varied tones throughout the poem, the author presents strong themes that can be related to the audience as well as to gain sympathy to the narrator.