A response essay to Kincaid’s article According to Jamaica Kincaid’s article, seeing things or going to new places for the first time can be exciting. But Kincaid gives us a view on personal opinions and thoughts on the reality of England. Also her purpose in writing this piece was to inform us how the people of England made them feel superior to the settlers in British colonies. Ever her tone has been criticized and angry.…
In Guillermo Verdecchia’s play, American Borders/Fronteras Americanas, he talks about the postcolonial effect on the world. Verdecchia talks about the use of lenses to see the different view points of society. For example, in the play he says, “I check into the Hotel de Don Tito, listed on page 302 of your Fodor’s as a moderate, small hotel with six suites, eight twins, eight singles, bar, homey atmosphere, and it’s located on one of the main streets in Santiago on Huérfanos at Huérfanos 578” (38-39). He shows how his Fodor, a well known and renounced travel guide, talks about how homey and ‘safe’ Hotel Don Tito is. However, in reality, this so called in depth perception of a culture and country by a travel magazine is not as important or relevant as how it is seen to be first hand.…
“The Ugly Tourist”, which originally appeared in Harper’s in 1988, became the opening chapter of “A Small Place”. The author is Jamaica Kincaid and she grew up in Antigua. Kincaid states in her essay “The Ugly Tourist” that “a tourist is an ugly human being”. These are strong words. You can sense the anger in her essay. She defines both what it is to be a tourist as well as to live in the gaze of tourists. The title introduces a key word used multiple times throughout her essay: ugly. The connotation of ugly speaks to ugliness of body, as well as spirit, and Kincaid intends both. “An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here…
The term immigrant is defined as “a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence” (“Immigrant”). In her autobiography, Barefoot Heart, Elva Trevino Hart speaks of her immigrant ways and how she fought to become the Mexican-American writer she is today. She speaks about the working of land, the migrant camps, plus the existence she had to deal with in both the Mexican and American worlds. Hart tells the story of her family and the trials they went through along with her physical detachment and sense of alienation at home and in the American (Anglo) society. The loneliness and deprivation was the desire that drove Hart to defy the odds and acquire the unattainable sense of belonging into American society.…
Tom McCarthy’s film ’The Visitor’ explores the issues relating to identity, belonging and racial and cultural differences. The film establishes how and enhanced sense of belonging can result from acceptance and understanding of differences. The film follows 3 characters Walter a forlorn widower and a couple of illegal immigrants…
"Miami no es los Estados Unidos" (Miami is not the United States) is a phrase that I heard many times while growing up in Miami. It is problematic, because at its core lies the idea that a city that is teeming with Latinx/Hispanic immigrants could not be representative of what the United States "really" is. An idea that is pervasive but that unnecessarily emphasizes the vibrant culture of Miami, and underplays the socioeconomic inequality that exists in many other cities. As an immigrant I have grown up as a part of communities that are often considered under-served, and that consistently struggled financially. Something that I was aware of from a young age, and that truly shaped the way I looked at my future. With every time that my mom woke…
It has often been said that coming to America is the start of a new life for many immigrant families. The novels Mona and the Promised Land by Gish Jen, and Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, it is said that “American means being whatever you want” (Jen 49). Mona and Rodriguez both strive to reach that “American dream.” They take the initiative throughout the novel and seek what they want to become. However, the novels show that in order for Mona and Rodriguez to become what they want, they have to make sacrifices. From losing their culture to losing their strong relationships with their parents, Mona and Rodriguez will have to endure consequences of their decision to become what they want to be.…
Julia Preston called illegal immigrants outsiders. According to the text, illegal immigrants don’t belong in the United States of America. They are not outsiders because they are illegal immigrants. They don’t have a social security number, and they can’t get a driver license. If the illegal immigrants don’t have a social security number, they can only get odd jobs. Also, illegal immigrants can’t get a driver license. If you were brought to the United States as a child and you drive in the United States with no license then the police could hand you over to the immigration authorities. That’s what happened to Olga Zenella. She spend two years fighting deportation. The immigrant’s officials let Olga go. They let her go because se is in collage studying to be a dentist. In conclusion, Julia Preston says that illegal immigrants are outsiders.…
In the short story “Toward Something American the Immigrant Soul,” author Peter Marin discusses how immigrants feel coming to live in America. Immigrants coming to a new country, basically a new world to them, feel misplaced. We as Americans see immigrants struggle on an everyday basis, not realizing that we do the same. We are the same, just from different parts of the world. Americans have this sense that people from other countries are not as we are. Immigrants see America has being a free country, a place to become you. “Home” is for us, as it is for all immigrants, something to be regained, created, discovered, or mourned-not where we are in time or space, but where we dream of being.…
In this document, the author let us realize that the decision to come to America was not always worthwhile. The distress immigrants had to experience during the journey and also the type of life they would have in America was definitely not what they were expecting at all.…
The experiences of immigrants coming to America are terrible. Immigrants came to America in search of a better life but because capitalism enslaved them, by low wages, dangerous working conditions, and injuries; they started to believe they never would have a better life. Immigrant’s wages were so low that women and children had to work and sometimes work at jobs that were not fit for women or children (p.66). Immigrants had so little money that they had to lie about their child’s age just so they could work and help their parents with some bills and other expenses. Working conditions were very poor women lifting 14 pound cans all day and men working in dangerous chemicals (p.65&66). Families lost their homes due to the death of a key wage earner through accident or illness, they were kicked out their homes, missing even one month of payment meant eviction and the forfeiture of everything paid on it. Also because wages were so low no one was ever really home everyone got up to go and work. There was no quality time spent with the family because when everyone is home there is always stress or exhaustion about paying the next bill, or the question of how are we going…
Millions of people immigrate to America looking for the “American Dream,” in search of a fair government and all types of various freedoms offered to people. America still has millions of people immigrating to the states every year and should continue to do so. People from various cultures and backgrounds populate the land, looking for a new way of life and a chance for new beginnings. In the essay 300 million and counting, by Joel Garreau, in Chapter 1 of the book “What Matters in America by Gary Goshgarian,” the author explains how almost every individual living in the states today arrived to America from somewhere else at some point or another…
Those who have grown up in America are psychologically and emotionally Americans. The author makes several attempts to appeal to the audience but none of which are affective. The author tries to appeal to the readers emotional feelings by making it seem as if illegal immigrants deserve to be considered as Americans. Just because you grow up in America doesn’t make you psychologically and emotionally an American. Growing up here may add to someone’s emotional and physical factors of being an American. But it takes more than that to be a true citizen of America. Like the love for one’s country and patriotism. You have to know are laws and how are government works, and respect your fellow American. Americans have a spiritual oath towards America and what are country stands for and you can have that by just living here for a period of…
People sacrifice everything just to come to America and live a better life, but they still often struggle once they get here. In the article’s “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska and “Facing Poverty with the Rich Girl’s Habit” by Suki Kim, these two authors discuss their Hardships coming to America and how America treats them. Most immigrants have hard time to assimilate into an American culture, which I myself can relate to.…
Immigrants are torn by contradictory social and intellectual demands, while facing the confront of entry into a strange intimidating environment. The migratory progression, for whatever the reason, seems to improve the sense of harmony among those who migrate, who are often united by ties of affiliation, community and customs, as well as class. Symbols of ethnicity, such as language and religious behavior serve as reminders of their origin to the migrants themselves, while at the same time marking these people as outsiders in their new locale. Some migrants make a conscious decision to abandon an old unsatisfactory way of life for what they believe will be paradise on earth, land of the free, the place to find the American dream, never thinking about why or what the leave behind.…