The House On Mango Street Immigrant Experience

Over the course of hundreds of years, immigrants from numerous countries have sought out to search for a better life in a new place. Many have come over to America with hopes and dreams that they wish to accomplish, but along the way they have also discovered the bitter reality of the immigrant experience and hardships that they must overcome on their journey to America. Based on the readings of Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, and Elva Trevino’s Barefoot Heart, the immigrant experience is seen through the eyes of the main characters. All of the authors offer a different perspective from each character as to how the immigrant experience is like, what they have to encounter, and the hardships that come
Many times people make assumptions as to what their abilities are, what their position in the social class is, and also their career. While Lindo Jong tells the story of her first job at a fortune cookie factory, one of her co-workers, An-mei Hsu, tell her, “[t]hey are fortunes. American people think Chinese people write these sayings. But we never say such things!” (Tan 299). As Lindo analyzes her first job that she took part in when first arriving in America, it shows that many times the assumptions that people make about someone of a different race is never really true. It may be seen to be a certain way on the movie screens but the truth of the matter is that any assumption made about anyone’s culture will never be correct because they all come from different backgrounds. The first thing that people often notice about immigrants are primarily their looks, assuming that they are all of the same kind, “[s]he said it was so unfortunate the way the rest of the world was, how unpopular the Vietnam War was” (Tan 125). Although what many people don’t understand is that there are many different ethnicities that lie behind the title of being Asian, as well as being Mexican. They all may seem to appear the same but most misinterpret the culture of an immigrant. When a certain race is known to have a substandard background, people would be quick to judge the person of that
As for immigrants, the struggle to find a job is very tedious because many times, jobs that are offered never compensate more than an average salary income. Through the experience of Lindo Jong, she too realizes that it is never easy as she expects, “[i] found a terrible job paying me seventy-five cents an hour” (Tan 297). Trying to balance on a less than average salary, immigrants have a hard time making enough money to support their families, let alone themselves half of the time. “So my mother was right about my hardships. This job in the cookie factory was one of the worst” (Tan 298). As difficult as it already is to find a job, finding one that would be pleasant and pays well will never end up in the same ends of the spectrum. Although the job wasn’t what she expected it to be, she had to find a way to make money because for many immigrants, the struggle to make money was an issue big enough by itself. One of the other situations that come along with the financial issues for an immigrant is being able to find a stable home. Like Esperanza says, “[t]hey always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn’t have to move each year” (Cisneros 4). To be financially stabled for an immigrant was never too occurring as they struggled to make a living off of what they could. With the lack of money