Coming To America Themes

The life of a typical woman in America spends a lot of time dressing and applying makeup to fit into society.

As she watches the events unfold between her family, Africa, and the American government, she learns the unpleasant truth that the government is corrupt. She furthers loses faith in her father and in God as time wears on and she discovers that reality is a brutal place.

CATEGORY 1: From growing up watching the news and reading articles about illegal immigrants, to currently realizing and seeing things into a different perspective. I noticed how the media loves to twist information, which brainwashes people into thinking negatively about events, like immigrants coming to America. It was at that point in my life that I realized I never thought about the struggles and obstacles they have to endure in order to cross the border to America. After reading the book, I learned that people scarified a lot to come to America. Reymundo Barreda is one of the characters that I wished would have made it to America alive and accomplish his goal.

The Vietnam war was an absolutely brutal time in American history. The war lasted for the majority of the 1960s and left many young men dead. The short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and the film Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam give us just a glance into the war by giving using the three themes of fear, pressures, and blame/guilt to embody the concept of war and how it absolutely changes a person. War not only destroys countries, but it destroys people.

The common theme of work is that if you work hard you will be either successful or happy and most of the time you success is in form of money. That's not always the case sometimes it can just be little experiences of life that makes someone feel a little more successful in the book Hidden America there was a chapter written by a journalist who went to see the conditions of the people who worked on coal mines and he loved to be down their he even went on to say “I kept going down into the coal mine. Explain that. I couldn't seem to quit.” in his chapter.

In Dinaw Mengestu's essay "Home at Last", the author describes his transition from Ethiopia to America and describes how the transition was easier for him, as child of 2 than it was for his parents who were far more familiar and entrenched with Ethiopia than he was.

Welcoming. Belonging. Sense of Purpose. Everyone wants that. Without it we feel naked, incomplete.

Overall I believe the common theme between these books was and/or is that not everyone has the same benefits, opportunities, and lifestyles. Hidden America showed the struggles of different lifestyles. In Hecho en America a man couldn’t simply just take his own child to the hospital not only that they were living out of their car. A illegal immigrant doesn’t have health benefits from their job because they aren’t working legally. They are so desperate for a job that they will drive hours away from their homes just to get a job. Then there are jobs like coal miners were you just have to break your back and live in dark. Even then people don’t appreciate what you do because they just think “Look at these poor, stupid rednecks who work these awful jobs. Trapped! Suffocating! Buried alive!”.

I walked around unsteadily all day like a lost baby, far away from its pack. Surrounded by unfamiliar territory and uncomfortable weather, I tried to search for any signs of similarities with my previous country. I roamed around from place to place and moved along with the day, wanting to just get away and go back home. This was my first day in the United States of America.

The American Dream is the chance for a person of any gender, race, sexual orientation, or or anyone of diversity to have an equal opportunity to change their and become happy and successful in their own eyes. Three books that explain the American Dream are The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou. Each book includes the main character trying to change his or her life by finding what makes them happy. They all leave their hometowns and have a chance to start over.

Ishmael read does an incredible job of pointing out all possible notions that the people who were here before us are,our cause of success. Reed discusses passionately for the ideas and social behaviors that arrived in the United States of America before and after the first wave of European settlers.

Stepping out of my first plane ride, I experience an epiphany of new culture, which seems to me as a whole new world. Buzzing around my ears are conversations in an unfamiliar language that intrigues me. It then struck me that after twenty hours of a seemingly perpetual plane ride that I finally arrived in The United States of America, a country full of new opportunities. It was this moment that I realized how diverse and big this world is. This is the story of my new life in America.

Growing up in Ghana, I had heard a lot of things about the U.S. This was a country I had always wanted to visit; my prayer was answered when I got the opportunity to travel there. Arriving in a new environment came with many experiences. Adjusting with food, language and the weather was not easy. With the passage of time, however I have been able to0 adjust and fit it. This write-up therefore is to elaborate on my experiences since coming to U.S.

Getting on our plane was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to, especially since my dad couldn’t come with us that day. December 8, 2010 was the day my family decided that moving to America would give me and my brother many more opportunities, keep in mind my parents hadn’t told us that we were moving to the US. I remember I had been hugging my dad saying goodbye to him and my mom had to come and grab me away from him. His face was through the window was the last thing I remember seeing before buckling my seat belt and laying down on my mother’s shoulder. Once we had landed my mother woke me up and said to me that I should help out with the luggage and the other belongings we had to take. The night went by probably faster than

up the phone and rang my Tom’s father to thank him, and for me and Tom