Arrivals Roots And Memories Essay

Freedom of America America is known around the world as the land of the free and the home of the brave. Ironically the United States has oppressed people a number of times throughout its history. Famous historians and economists tell us that America was built by slaves and the sweat and tears of immigrants. After reading three different stories about different immigrants and what they had to go through to get to America and their experiences while they were here, I have new insight about what freedom really means and why America is known as the land of the free and home of the brave. Freedom is an idea that a person has the right to pursue anything they believe is rightfully theirs and can be taken away forcefully. For many people, America was freedom from oppression whether it is freedom from their country or freedom from certain living conditions. Vo Thi Tam wrote a story called “A Boat Person’s Story” and told how she came from Vietnam to the United States. She left because her country’s government was placing them in areas where they could not live or tend to the land. “They gave us tools and a little food, and that was it. We just had to dig up the land and cultivate it. And the land was very bad” (87). Mary Antin also came to America to escape Czarist Russia to be free and have security. She tells her story in “The Promised Land” an autobiography Antin wrote (82). Both authors came to America to be free and have an opportunity to be safe and successful. Ironically both authors also refer to America as a land of savior by calling America a “Promised Land” or “Paradise.” It was like waking up after a bad nightmare. Like coming out of hell into paradise….” (90) Both of these authors believed they had the right to escape oppression and go to a place they believed paradise all because of this idea of freedom. Freedom can be taken away from people. Since the beginning of America, there has been slavery. In Charles Ball’s “Slave Ship”, he gives details of the difficult journey he and many others made to come to America just to be slaves. He was sold when he came to America and never had a chance to fight for his freedom. “I was bought by a trader with several others, brought up the country and sold to my present master. I have been here five years.” (80) This makes the assumption that people are given freedom from birth. This idea actually being factual makes the United States such a hypocritical figure of freedom since they too took the freedom of others at one point in the countries’ history. In another story called “Arrival at Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, Jeanne was never a slave and actually lived in the United States as a citizen. However, the United States was at war with the Japanese and the people were suspicious of other Japanese believing they were spies. Because of this, Jeanne’s freedom was taken away and she was forced to move to an internment camp from ages seven till she was eleven (92). “In December 1941 Papa’s disappearance didn’t bother me nearly so much as the world I soon found myself in.” (92). Everyone deserves the right to freedom. Whether that freedom is from oppression, poverty, or to pursue happiness, everyone deserves these rights. Jeanne was one of many unfortunate people who had freedom taken away from her. What makes it even worse is that the United States took her freedom. The land of the supposedly “free” and the home of the brave is just a joke. The truth is, if the majority of the United States wanted to, slavery would exist again and people would be stripped of their freedom. Thankfully, people have come to their senses and insured slavery, along with other things, to be abolished.

Works Cited
Antin, Mary. “The Promised Land.” Connections. Ed. Judith Stanford. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001. 82-85. Print.
Ball, Charles. “Slave Ship.” Stanford. 79-80.
Houston, Jeanne. Houston, James. “Arrival at Manzanar.” Stanford. 92-97.
Tam, Vo Thi. “A Boat Person’s Story.” Stanford. 87-90.