...At age three my parents decided to move America for a better opportunity and a new start. When I started school here, I realized I was much different from other kids in school. Gradually I became less confident and more isolated. I remember one school day, I was playing basketball alone. Next, this girl named sally, and asked me if she could join in. Although we had difficulty understanding each other, we managed to learn each other. As I watched Sally play basketball, I thought she was a very skilled player. On the other hand, I was struggling to learn the game rules. Soon our friendship grew, we kept learning new things from each other and also engaging. Alongside I found myself laughing with other kids whom I thought I had nothing in common. At this...
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...Sensations My family and I are moving to the Americas because we used to have a terrible life in Asia. I have yet to wonder or what to expect once we arrive. Although my stomach has intertwined and I am uncertain what lies ahead, for my future and my parents in America. My mind is petrified and I am too, but my heart is warm and I feel as if things will be different but conventional and abundant. I am now in America; however, in my heart I am at my roots, Asia. I am anxious to meet someone who will love me for who I am and not for where I am coming from, to be given that feeling where I feel like home. I am not aware of these American people, nor did I expect to be. My eyes deceive my mind, I have arrived at a community where I am surrounded by mindful people. In a moment as I was processing what will be my new world for as long I live; in the hope that these people will accept me. One afternoon after the day we arrived, I was walking past a crowd of people. I caught a glimpse of a beautiful man, whose name I would like to know. From his gorgeous light brown hair to deep blue eyes, and skin almost the color of pearl. He really caught my attention to the point where I thought of him every minute. I would never imagine myself with a white man whose complexion is...
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...Summary and Personal Response By cause of unforeseen circumstances, Suki and her family are forced to give up their "fairy tale" life in South Korea. In her essay “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits,” Suki Kim (2011, p. 62) shares some of the struggles of fitting in that she endures after moving to America. Due to the financial collapse of her father’s businesses and the option of bankruptcy being out of the question, Suki and her family are forced to abandon their extravagant life in South Korea. After arriving in America, the family takes up residence in Queens, New York (Kim, 2011, p. 62). Suki’s new home is anything but glamorous. She describes it as “a crammed, ugly place” compared to the “hilltop mansion” where she grew up. For the first time in 13 years, she has to make her way through the day-to-day routines without the aid of the hired help. Aside from being stripped of her pampered lifestyle, Suki is now attempting to knock down the language and cultural barriers that separate her from her peers. In her new school, Suki is enrolled in an English as a Second Language class. With this class comes the opportunity for Suki to converse with fellow students in her native language. However, in the midst of these common bonds is also the obvious distinction of social status (Kim, 2011, p. 63). America is most often looked upon as a melting pot where all are welcome with the expectation of being treated equally. It doesn’t take long for Suki to realize that...
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...University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-2010 Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context Leah Rang University of Tennessee - Knoxville, lrang@utk.edu Recommended Citation Rang, Leah, "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2010. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/655 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.edu. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Leah Rang entitled "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Urmila Seshagiri, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Lisi Schoenbach, Bill Hardwig Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council:...
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...Lower East Side Memories : A Jewish Place in America By HASIA R. DINER The Lower East Side and American Jewish Memory I'm Jewish because love my family matzoh ball soup. I'm Jewish because my fathers mothers uncles grandmothers said "Jewish," all the way back to Vitebsk & Kaminetz-Podolska via Lvov. Jewish because reading Dostoyevsky at 13 I write poems at restaurant tables Lower East Side, perfect delicatessen intellectual. —Allen Ginsberg, "Yiddishe Kopf" The poet Allen Ginsberg, born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, returned in his later years to a narrative style of expression, shifting gears from the anger and fire of his early career. In this poem from 1991 he also touched down again, after a long hiatus spent exploring Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, upon some Jewish themes, as a way of remembering the world of his youth. He described that world in one poem, "Yiddishe Kopf," literally, a Jewish head, but more broadly, a highly distinctive Jewish way of thinking, based on insight, cleverness, and finesse. That world for him stood upon two zones of remembrance. The world of eastern Europe, of Vitebsk, Lvov, and Kamenets-Podolski gave him one anchor for his Jewishness. Thai space of memory gave him a focus for continuity and inherited identity, tied down by the weight of the past, by family in particular. The other, the Lower East Side, nurtured and...
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...historical events in the book, this work cannot be called as historical fiction. Rather it falls into the category of Alternate history. It belongs to the genre where the author alters events that really happened in the past and sets his plot in the resulting changes. In the case of Flight, the novel can be called speculative fiction with a heavy dose of history and historical elements. In this narrative of Zits’ story, the author makes the protagonist jump into different historical identities. Zits does this as he travels through time and revisits history. Zits understanding of violence changes as he travels through these different...
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...Daniela Escudero Eng-101 Prof. David Schleicher Narrative Essay 5/27/2014 Moving to America Transformed My Life In the past I came across many changes but leaving my country was the toughest change in my life. I had to learn how to live away from people I love and how to start a new life in a new country. Immigration is a life changing experience; learning a new language, adapting to the culture and lifestyle changes are all strenuous things that were thrown at me once I became a part of this country. Even though moving away from my family and friends was a difficult decision, it changed my live for a better. It taught me how to deal with change, how to become an independent and responsible person, and how to feel this country my home. I never imagined living in another country. I remember as it was yesterday when my mom said, “Daniela, I know you do not want to leave Colombia but I have to take you with me, you are my youngest child and I will not let you here” I started arguing with her, saying that how she could do that to me when I already had plans to start college and that I was happy in my country but at the end I gave up and decided to come to America. It was February 10th, 2010, when I left Colombia and was forced to leave my friends, my grandmother, my school, my language and culture to move to this big new country to start a new life. As I took my last look at my home, I remembered all the fun times I had with my mom and sister and friends...
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...that he experiences as he flees from his war torn country of southern Sudan. The book paints a vivid picture of the epic journey that the main character in the story, Valentino faces from the time that he flees the country to the time that he finally reaches what he thought would be the “Promised Land” in Atlanta, United States of America. He was soon to realize that even in America, life would not be a bed of roses but it would be marred by unexpected acts of violence and racial discrimination (Dave 28). One striking thing in the narrative is that the author brings out the culture of the Dinka people. For instance, polygamous nature of the Dinka people is clearly illustrated. The myth regarding the origin of the Dinka people is as well demonstrated (Bess). In regards to this origin, the Dinka people are given a choice by God to choose between the cattle and the “What is the What”. They choose the cattle which they understood better rather than “What is the What” which they did not as demonstrated in the line, "—you didn't tell us the answer: What is the What? My father shrugged. —We don't know. No one knows” (Dave 64). Through the narrative, a reader is informed on the historical background of the south Sudanese people. The relative geographical locations of the three African countries of Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya are well described, painting an unforgettable picture in the mind of the reader. The diversity in different cultures comes out clearly in the book as the main...
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...Stella Vallik Christianshavns Gymnasium November 2012 Analytical Essay Jean Kwok: Where The Gods Fly Imagine permanently moving to a country where the language, the culture... everything is foreign to you. This is the reality of most immigrant parents, who try to raise their children safely in a foreign country, where strong influences can strip a person of their cultural identity. This is the exact situation we are dragged into, in the short story 'Where The Gods Fly' written by Jean Kwok. Here we meet a Chinese mother's unwelcoming approach, towards her daughter's passion for the arts of ballet. The story is told by a first person narrator, from a mothers perspective. Her, her husband and her daughter migrated from China when her daughter, Pearl, was still a child. We notice - while reading the story - that the narrator shifts in the grammatical tense, which is what structures the plot of the story. In the present narrative tense, we find the mother in some sort of religious state of mind where she prays to certain gods and spirits, for example: “Ah, Amitabha, Buddha of great compassion, I whisper...” (P. 1, L. 24). While she finds herself in this state, she is reminded of their, her family's, life since they moved from China to America, these parts of the story are, obviously, told in the past tense. The story begins in the present tense, as a sort of exposition. We are introduced to the narrator's situation, the main conflict of the story: she wants to take her daughter...
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...Democracy Both Jean Jacques Rousseau and Alex de Tocqueville have been profoundly influential in helping us understand the nature of our society. Their critical analysis provides a platform through which we can engage in pragmatic debate. This paper will attempt to explain the views of both authors while giving a comparative analysis of their ideas. In the early 19th century, renowned French political thinker Alex de Tocqueville embarked on a journey across the Atlantic Ocean to America. His mission was to understand what exactly made American democracy so special. Along the way, much was revealed about the American way of life. In his findings he noted the prevailing sense of individualism amongst the population. He found that most people where predominantly occupied by the notion of the “self” rather than the collective. Unsurprisingly, Tocqueville came to the conclusion that such a way of life would inevitably cause a collapse in America’s social framework. In what can only be called a remarkable display of socio-political prescience, Tocqueville also concluded that the American civilization was destined to adopt a form of governance wherein all actions would be designed to satisfy the will of the individual rather than the will of the collective. The trend towards individualism and selfishness that Tocqueville identified prompted him to come to a series of revealing predictions. He found that a culture predicated on egotism, selfishness and individualism would promote...
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...While reading America on Film, examples of films that went along with the concepts defined in the text began parading around in my mind. I thought the section about the concept of whiteness, along with the section about African Americans were very informing. Along with watching Melvin Van Peeble’s film, “Baadasssss!”, I was able to recognize and connect definitions that were mentioned in the book along with the film. This film is what started the revolution of Blaxploitation films, which is defined as “cheaply made films of the early 1970s that featured strong, aggressive African American leads, sometimes battling racist white characters and institutions (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009). However, on the contrary, the film also revealed that African American’s were not the only race being misrepresented in such films. Sweet Sweetback serves as a token character in the film, which is defined by the authors of the text as “a single character used to deflate charges of bias within a film or institution” (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009). This film was the first to expose White Racist Cops and their remorseless corruption, represents...
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...because these factors contribute and influence an author’s point of view as well as each author’s unique voice and message depending on the time period. Harriet A. Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is a slave narrative. The literary conventions of the slave narrative define the work. Slave narratives echo biblical stories that often reflect persecuted groups attempting to escape to freedom. Jacobs’s piece details her struggle to escape her master from sexual abuse. Vivanco (2003), “The process from sin to rebirth in spiritual autobiographies is paralleled by the process from slavery to freedom in slave narratives. Slaves experience a change from chattel, enduring suffering, to man or woman living in the Promised Land, the North,” (para. 5). Further distinction of the slave narrative is how authors shape the story, often chronologically. Slave narratives illustrate an author’s personal experience though many share common themes of extreme violence/abuse and racial prejudice. Slave narratives are essentially autobiography, which offer an author’s own experience for readers to find meaning. Jacobs’s female voice sheds light on issues affecting slave women; sexual abuse and losing children to death or slave trade particularly. Jacobs’s narrative is a prime example of how different slave women were treated as opposed to men. Both...
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...Week 3 Assignment 1.1 \\Eng 115 The author of the essay “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits” is Suki Kim. In the essay, Kim wants to explain her struggles. The essay discusses the struggles she had as a child being in the 7th grade and moving from South Korea to Queens, NY. She went from being rich to being poor basically overnight. Her world as she knew it was changed in an instant. Her father went from being a billionaire to having nothing. Her main purpose is to describe what she faced while trying to adapt to different beliefs and cultures. Kim talks about her life going to a new school where everyone spoke English. She noticed that even Korean American kids avoided her. She had not realized there was much diversity within an immigrant group. There was definitely a separation between the groups. Being a teenager, she was “already rooted in Korean ways and language”. Her soul was not quite American although on paper that is what she was considered. She would rather use her Hello Kitty backpack instead of one that had pictures of the Menudo boys who were popular in the 80’s. She was upset that her parents would not allow her to pierce her ears. Most girls her age had their pierced. It sounds like she struggled to fit in and still keep her Korean culture Her lifestyle changed tremendously. She went from having a chauffer to taking public transportation. She had to get used to being called an Asian when she had only heard that term in school in...
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... and practice of a territory extending their political power over another is called to attention and held up to its accusations by a novel ripping at the seams with exploration of the complicated and ambiguous relationship between literary works and indigenous activism. This novel- Whisper in Shadows- is set within these boundaries of indigenous activism in the Americas. As a Native American artist and activist, Penny, an Okanagan woman, is enticed from an early age with a fascination of art; and spends most of her time with Tulpa, her grandmother. After she was separated from the father of her three children, Francis and became discouraged with her job stamping crates and picking apples, she then took the opportunity to enroll in a fine arts program at a university. There she becomes acquainted with a woman named Julie, who then becomes a lifelong friend, and starts to get engaged with and form an assessment of the exploitative practices of capitalistic economics. She takes part in environmental protests and attends lectures aimed towards building indigenous strength and politics at a global scale....
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...In Defender of the Faith, Roth uses Marx as a representation of a modern Jewish man who struggles with his faith and Jewish identity when a fellow soldier begins to relate with him because of the common faith which they hold. Through his narration, Roth also displays a sense of sympathy towards characters who attempt to change their cultural identity. Roth uses his narrative voice to set up themes that can be easily interpreted as his own personal ideas in his fictional text. In Operation Shylock, he combines Israeli politics with a satiric voice. He does this to show his opinion of the Israeli and Jewish politics while staying away from a harsh critical tone. Through dialogue, Roth illustrates his conception of the Jewish world and the way in which it is moving (Gadat). Roth continues to present the reader with insight on the social and cultural issues of his times. Generally, Roth is concerned with society and the values which it holds in many of his works. In Goodbye, Columbus, Mr. Patimkin sets an extra place at the table for Mickey Mantle, an athletic superstar during Roth’s time. This scene represents a loss of Jewish tradition, as this...
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