A Good Friend Of Mine By Jonathan De Souza

Who would have thought that I will be, one day moving, not from state to state, but moving to a different country in its entirety; certainly, not me. I would hear all the time that the United States was the land of endless opportunities and a place that someone could start fresh. For the first twenty-five years of my life all I’ve ever known was how it was like living in Mexico City, the Mexican culture. From day to day for most my life thus far all I known was everything revolved around Mexican culture if it was to the food, the people, the city or the being around my family. The way I was raised, we were taught that no matter what was going on that we would make sure that the family was okay and if my parents were struggling with any

The poem “Between the World and Me” by Richard Wright reanimates the horrible scene of a racial lynching and forces the reader to endure the victim's pain through the first person’s narrative voice. The poem contains structured lines and visual division into three stanzas. Moreover, there is one more type of division in the poem. The author uses an ellipsis four times throughout the poem. This punctuation mark frames the poem into the timeline, where the historical past of the African American poet becomes the present experience of any human, despite the race. The climax of the poem is presented in the middle of stanza two. The animated moment, which starts from the sentence “the ground gripped my feet”, dramatically shifts the

The United States has been a host to a wide diaspora of people. Immigrants have had to transition from their familiar land to a new-fashioned foreign land that they must consider home. They bring with them the essence of their initial homeland such as customs, traditions and beliefs that inadvertently change the dynamics of culture within the United States. As a result the United States is an extremely culturally diverse nation. The continual changes or accretions that Americans encounter have always been a controversial topic depending on the experiences of individuals and communities that have immigrant populations. This essay will critically explore

Immigrants are never fully welcome in a new place because people form small “in-groups” and ignore those in the “out-groups” in most cases. Smith starts this essay with a brief story about a fourth grader, Rodrigo Guzman and his family being deported back to Mexico, focusing on the reaction from his classmates when

Immigrating to a new country is difficult. One of the largest groups of immigrants that migrate to the United States are the Hispanics. There are approximately 11.7 million immigrants in the United States as of January 2010, and the amount continues to increase at a rapid rate (Warren, 2013). On average there are approximately 300,000 Hispanic immigrants entering the United States each year (Warren, 2013). Hispanics come from all Latin America including Mexico, the islands of the Caribbean, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, Central and South America (Warren, 2013). The United States has represented liberty and freedom to these individuals, and they often make critical decisions and take chances in the hope of a better future. Individuals often, leave their home country in hopes of a new beginning. The aim of this paper is to provide an extensive research on the current literature on immigration and acculturation among the Hispanic population.

Since Amin Ahmad immigrated into the United States from India, he has real life experience that contributes to his claims. He is able to connect specific occurrences he faced with immigrants like himself, and their comparable situations. He explains that, “my passport tells the story of my immigrant life: my student and work visas; all the entry and exit stamps as I traveled between India and the United States” (Ahmad 38). His passport is a constant reminder of the journey he has traveled and the experiences that define him as a person. Ahmad demonstrates a perspective of immigration that is unique to many. Not only has he made the steps towards leaving his country, he has successfully created a life for himself. He has lived in the United States for a long period of time and even has an American fiancé. With this unique situation, he can connect with a vast amount of different people, both citizens and immigrants.

Immigrating to America is a process in which many people all across the world entrust as their one way ticket to a better life. Whether they do so legally or illegally, coming to the United States ensures better opportunities, economically, politically, and so on, to people who would have otherwise been worse off in their countries of origin. Even so, the common understanding of being “better off” can be considered a misconstrued concept when it comes to living in the states. Many families that choose to immigrate to the U.S. fail to realize the cultural hardships that newcomers tend to face once on American soil. Anything from racial discrimination or bias at work, in neighborhoods, at school, etc., can all be challenges that people encounter when making a move to the U.S. Such challenges are described by Richard Rodriquez in his autobiography Hunger of Memory. In this passage, he explains how cultural differences between Mexican and American ways of life have shaped him into the person that he is today. He also chooses to highlights the problems that he faces growing up in a predominately white neighborhood, while attending a predominantly white institution. Much of his writing consists of the cultural differences and pressures he feels to assimilate to Western culture and how this process, in turn, changes him into the person that some may find to be unethical, but nonetheless, someone he is proud of.

A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash definitely fits the category of “grit lit.” It is a novel about the Hall’s, a family who is wracked with grief, anxiety, and guilt after the ‘mysterious’ death of one of their sons, Christopher or Stump. The story encompasses more than just the story of the family though as it is told from the perspective of Adelaide Lyle, an old wise woman from the town, Jess Hall the youngest son of the family, and Clem Barefield, the sheriff of Marshall who also had heartache of his own that is intertwined with this families story in more ways than one. The novel incorporates most if not all of the features that is “grit lit” including: an element of crime, a focus on the bleakness of life, lyrical language, and a central character who wishes to escape their environment or get peace inside it.

The journey of many immigrants is characterized by trauma prior to, during, and following migration. They may be escaping hunger, war, poverty, or torture in their native country. The decision to migrate to host country is not an easy one for most immigrants. People leave behind family members, and often risk their lives to cross borders in order to live a life of freedom and opportunity. Immigrants must endure intolerance and suspicion, while navigating the complexities of assimilating to a language and a culture foreign to their own. If the person enters the country without proper documents, they live in constant fear of being detained and deported. Undocumented immigrants may have to accept jobs far below their skill level, and endure blatant discrimination. If Mario is an immigrant, his volatile behavior may be a result of acculturative stress or immigration trauma

Everyone has at least one friend. This book is perfect in describing what that friendship is about. Also containing some amazing quotes of the do's and don'ts of a friendship. A book that would make a splendid gift but make sure to get a copy for yourself. My opinion is that you must buy the actual book. Purchasing an e-book gives you the ability to read the quotes, but you will lose out on the superb pictures and quality of the book. In the front of the book is a special area to write the name of the person receiving it plus who the book is from also there is even enough space for a little note. Nice touch. This is a book to be given. The quotes arise from people from all walks of life. There are many authors such as C.S. Lewis who wrote

In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and

The changing environments throughout the ages have caused the movement of thousands of families out of their homelands. Whether forced to make such decisions or doing so by their own desires, all immigrants have had to survive the physical and psychological challenges encountered along the way. To speak about the experiences of all these different people using the same ideas and examples would be quite inaccurate. They all, however, had to live through similar situations and deal with similar problems. Many of them succeeded and found the better future they were looking for. Many others found only hardship and experienced the destruction of their hopes and dreams. All of them were transformed.

The being of acceptance when traveling to new places and countries can cause hardships and confusion when being somewhere new. While there are similarities and differences between everyone whose ever been to new countries have always learned the hard way of becoming accepted. Beyond stating the similarities and differences in the articles, “I Want to Be Miss America”, by Julia Alvarez, “Hot Dogs and Wild Geese,” by Friroozeh Dumas and “Global Voices”, by Joshua St. Onge, the larger idea can be seen by reading all three texts and finding that two of the authors, Alvarez and Dumas have similarities in the articles while Onge has a different perspective on the way culture change has hardships. Culture change can be very pleasant and very difficult to

In Susan Dicker’s article about the transitional community within the Dominican culture in Washington Heights, Dicker argues that complete assimilation for all immigrants into American culture is highly unlikely which causes cultural diversity. Immigrants, who move to a different place with a pre-established sense of culture and identity, maintain an attitude to refute the new culture in order to maintain theirs (Dicker 13). People do not like to fully submit themselves to assimilation because in order to do so, they must give up their own culture and accept another that is not truly theirs. The cultural ties experienced at an early age are never easily lost and therefore remain within the population. Another reason why assimilation does not occur is that immigrants usually must learn a new language, which is difficult

Unwavering trust and the heart to love another person as they would their brother is a key aspect of “A Diamond Guitar”. In “A Diamond Guitar” by Truman Capote, there is a man named Mr. Schaeffer who is the ideal good friend. He has been sentenced ninety plus years in a work farm for committing murder. After serving about seventeen years in the work farm a new inmate named Tico Feo, a foreigner from Cuba, arrived in the work farm. Throughout the story, both characters’ lives are visualized through the perspective of Mr. Schaeffer himself. Both of them end up bonding and connecting their lives in the restricted space of the work farm. Mr. Schaeffer is a good friend because of how he treats Tico Feo as if he were his own brother, keeps his feelings in mind, and gives things to him without asking for anything back.