Throughout history we have seen many people leaving their old lives behind for the new opportunities in America but are let down by the harshness of our culture. In the story, Arrival: 1960 by Pablo Medina, we learn about a young Cuban family who make a big move to the United States, more specifically New York City. The main character begins the story high spirited and excited for their new home for it would be packed with new experiences. As the story continues he begins to see the reality within the city and at his school. He discovers that his new environment is not at all what he expected and on top of that he is faced with a culture that is abstract to his previous beliefs of identification. His high expectations were greatly reduced to the shocking experiences he went through in this forbidding environment.
Moving to a brand new home can be very exciting, especially to an area of a completely different culture and climate. The beginning of the story starts off with the main character and his family arriving into the “New York winter” and he rushes “down the steps of the plane” sinking his “hands into the snow” (Medina 72). He is amazed by the whiteness of snow and attempts to throw snowballs at his sister until his hands are “red and wet” (Medina 72). Throughout the beginning the main character is bewildered, but yet excited by their new surroundings. When they arrive all is white and clean with New York seeming like a whole new adventure. As the story goes along he
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,”
Since the establishment of the colonies, America has been viewed as the “land of opportunity.” It is thought to be a safe haven for immigrants, and a chance at a new beginning for others. “The Clemency of the Court” by Willa Cather published in 1893, tells the story of Serge, a Russian immigrant, who overcame the struggles of a tough childhood and fled to America to receive protection from the state. “Clothes” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni published in 1995, tells the story of Sumita, a Indian immigrant, who is moving to America so that she can marry her husband that her family has arranged for her. Both “The Clemency of the Court” and “Clothes” show the evolution of the American immigrant experience.
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
According to Jie Zong, Jeanne Batalova, and Jeffrey Hallock, the U.S. has been “the top destination for international migrants since the least 1960, with one fifth of the world’s migrants living there as of 2017.” It is well known to numerous people that hundreds of immigrants travel from all over the world to the United States, but what exactly does it take for many of them to get here? One such author, Sonia Nazario, manages to capture the gruesome journey of one immigrant boy, who like many others, is attempting to make it to the United States. The author reveals the brutal realities and the main reason countless of young children make their way to America. In her novel, Enrique’s Journey, Sonia Nazario utilizes pathos, reputable sources,
“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.
First of all, the setting of this novel contributes to the Rivera family’s overall perception of what it means to be an American. To start this off, the author chooses a small American city where groups of Latino immigrants with their own language and traditions, lived together in the same apartment building. All these immigrants experienced similar problems since they moved from their countries. For example, in the novel after every other chapter the author
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.
She explains her thesis by stating “Others who write stories of migration often talk of arrival at a new place as a loss of communal memory and the erosion of an original culture. I want to talk of arrival as a gain,” (360). The key points of the text include Mukherjee describing her transition between Calcutta and the United States, and what it means to be and American and how culture influences that aspect. The information in the text is significant; the people of America are a part of a melting pot, sometimes it is hard for them to find the distinction between American culture and their own. The information in Mukherjee’s story is clear and specific, unbiased, and is relevant to the purpose of the story. I believe Mukherjee has achieved her purpose of informing her audience about cultural differences; she presents certain strengths and weaknesses within the text.
Different, confused, annoyed and disrespected are just a few words to describe the main character Gerard in Roxane Gay’s short story Motherfuckers. With Gerard originally being from Haiti, he and his family are forced to find out that immigrating from another country to America, can be a completely different transition. Moving from one country to another, immigrants are forced to adapt. American culture only acknowledges certain kinds of education from other countries. This causes his father to go from being a journalist in Haiti, to working in a place where his coworkers judging him because he is from Haiti.
To me, being an AU Eagle means having pride in my school while working towards understanding what my role should be in the community. Being an AU Eagle also means taking action; as a potential student, I am eager to learn how to effectively instigate change by immersing myself in an environment that values learning through service. I am personally interested in helping to minimize the education gap in underserved communities. At AU, I could further my own awareness of how to help under-resourced communities in a socially conscious manner.
Many second generation minorities from immigrant parents are driven subconsciously to conform to new culture and social norms. For foreign born parents and native born children integrating the two cultures they inhabit brings about different obstacles and experiences. In Jhumpa’s “The Namesake” the protagonist Gogol is a native born American with foreign born parents. The difference with birth location plays an important role in assimilating to a new society in a new geography. The difficulty for parents is the fact that they’ve spent a decent amount of time accustomed to a new geography, language, culture and society which makes it difficult to feel comfortable when all of that changes. For Gogol the difficulty only lies with the cultural norms imposed by his parent’s and the culture and social norms that are constantly presented in the new society.
What makes a film great to the viewer watching it? Is it the plot of the story? Maybe even the timing of the film? Possibly the special effects? The answer is all of it makes a movie great. You cannot just take in a few things to determine if the movie fulfills your standards of what makes a film good. There are a few things that really makes the movie Arrival stand out as one of the better films of 2016. I believe that Arrival is built on the foundation that all great movies have a relatable theme, show good acting, and brings out certain emotion that keeps us wanting more.
Arriving at a foreign country at the age of eleven years old was and exiting and yet intimidating experience. High buildings, wide roads, newer and nicer cars on the streets were some of the first things I noticed when I arrived to the city of Los Angeles CA. Living in a country where you were not born in could be difficult some times. Although Spanish is spoken at a grand scale in CA, it was difficult to communicate with and understand the teachers from my classes at the elementary level since all they spoke was English. Los Angeles is a city of great diversity, therefore it is believed to be the perfect place for any person arriving from another country to not feel like a foreign, such believe
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.