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How Did Esperanza Overcome Discrimination In America

Decent Essays

Poor Mexican immigrants in California faced major discrimination through terrible living conditions, hard labor, and very low wages. Most American people made them feel unwanted and took away a lot of their rights. In the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza is a thirteen year old girl who was rich in Mexico and her Dad suddenly died of a mysterious bandit attack. After this happened she was forced to go to California to try to survive. Since Papa’s death, Esperanza had to face many other challenges as an immigrant such as not knowing how to do chores because she always had servants, having to go to work to take care of Mama, and facing discrimination in America.
Most importantly, Esperanza faced the challenge of not knowing how to do chores because she always had servants when she lived in Mexico. Esperanza had the chore of sweeping the platform but Marta and her friends made fun of her because she looked weird trying to sweep and didn’t know how to do it. On page 118 it says,“How would you know how to sweep a floor? The only thing you ever learned was how to give orders. That is not your fault. Anza, look at me.” said Miguel. After she got made fun of …show more content…

Mama got sick from a pretty bad dust storm they said they couldn’t save people from it because they couldn’t see. Once that was over with Esperanza knew she had to find a way to support her family and pay bills. On page 166 it says, “I could work in the fields or in the sheds and Melina and Irene have already offered to watch Pepe and Lupe.” She dealt with the challenge by copying every aspect of everything that the rest of the workers did so that she too could fit in and actually work correctly. On page 169 it says, Esperanza copied everything that Hortensia and Josefina did. When the women put the hot bricks between their feet to keep them warm while they worked, so did

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