Identity in E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime Essay example

Furthermore, in most cases, it may seem the United States has a system in which immigrants are not given the chance to form a bright future. In the novel, “Antonio soon found himself settling for jobs that were clearly beneath him. He stood under the baking sun at the on-ramp to the Santa Monica Freeway, selling oranges for two dollars a bag: a dollar fifty for the guy from the produce market, fifty cents for him,” (Tobar, 53). Many of the immigrants that live in the U.S. have little power that allows them to succeed. Some races have benefitted from it more than others. The Cubans, for instance, have had it much easier than most immigrants who have migrated to the United States; whereas, Antonio, a Guatemalan, had trouble finding a stable job that allowed him to sustain himself. In contrast to many other races, many Americans described Cubans as being visitors who represent, “all phases of life and professions, having an excellent level of education… More than half of their families with them, including children brought from Cuba to escape communist indoctrination in the schools,”

Immigrants constantly face racial prejudices unknown to the privileged. These immigrants are only trying to have a life for themselves and/or for their children. My Antonia by Willa Cather entails the trials and tribulations of those who seek success told through the perspective of Jim Burden. The novel consists of people out of the country wanting a better life for themselves; That's what they want most of all. The immigrants that Jim comes to know go through hardships that they overcome to finally become successful in the end.

Barriers can include differing languages, beliefs and customs. In ‘Felicks Skryznecki’ Peter Skryznecki showcases the consequences of migrating to a new country and the effects it has on the persona and his father. When migrating to a country cultural details can be lost between generations of family. As the persona describes his father’s relationship with “his polish friends” Skryznecki utilises positive connotations to show the father’s comfort with them whilst conveying the persona’s distance and unfamiliarity with them. This is demonstrated through his strong use of hyperbolic imagery as the friends and his father “always shook hands too violently” causing another aspect of alienation for the persona as he is unfamiliar with the archetypal polish characteristic. The inversion of the statement “inherited unknowingly” effectively places emphasis on the negative connotations associated with “unknowingly” conveying the persona’s reluctance to belong to his father’s culture. His reluctance is likely from discrimination and lack of acceptance in the society as presented when the “department clerk asked in dancing bear grunts: / ‘Did your father ever attempt to learn English?’” Skryznecki’s demeaning visual imagery and metaphor portrays the treatment as animalistic and primitive showing the closed minded attitude of the clerk clueing to attitudes of the wider society. This comment immediately creates distance between the clerk and the persona and father, symbolising the barriers to belonging brought on by culture. Thus, depending on the attitudes towards different cultures in society a barrier can be created causing shifts in relationships generating a sense of alienation of a person in their physical

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

Throughout life, every individual must face obstacles; some more difficult than others. In the story “The Trip” by Laila Lalami, poem “Exile” by Julia Alvarez, and article “Outlaw: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant” by Jose Antonio Vargas, there is a main character who has to face many challenges because of the fact that they’re immigrants. In all three texts, it is evident that being an immigrant has many affects on their lives. However, this label and the obstacles that come with it didn’t stop each character from pushing forward.

The Goldbergs deemphasize the vulnerability of immigrants as not fully American or Jewish and their strife not to be nothing. On the other hand, Amos ‘n’ Andy presents racial stereotypes in America through slapstick comedy, which oddly enough reminded me of another immigrant book I read, Achiche’s Americanah. While Amos ‘n’ Andy deals with African Americans, Americanah is written from the perspective of a Nigerian immigrant, but Achiche’s commentary from an outsider’s perspective helps clarify race issues in America and why stereotypes presented in Amos ‘n’ Andy are so demeaning. Achiche confronts American tribalisms of race, ideology, and region through the blog of her character, Ifemelu, who poignantly states, “I didn’t know I was black until I came to the USA.” Throughout the novel, race becomes a prejudicial barrier or a taboo topic that well-intentioned people attempt to erase. In Amos ‘n’ Andy, race is presented in a negative manner because the white writers use stereotypes to engage a white audience in a topic they prefer to

Aside from the financial struggles, the Shimerdas overcame the misery which winter presents, as starvation and hypothermia were difficult to overcome in the Shimerdas’ poorly insulated house containing a rotting food supply. This proves that immigrants were perseverant, contrary to popular stereotypes of immigrants. Moreover, Antonia began working in her family’s fields at a young age, to help her family gain economic security. Although initially reluctant, Antonia’s willingness to forfeit her education for the physiological needs of her family provides insight regarding the work ethic and determination of immigrants. Antonia’s arduous work on her family’s field contradicts Riis’ nativist claim that immigrants were “indifferent to all else but [their] pipe and [their] own enjoyment” (Riis 66).

Claude McKay and Langston Hughes were both prominent African American Men in the Harlem Renaissance of the early 1900s. As such, they have received their fair share of the racism prevalent during this time period. Their concerns with this issue are addressed in McKay’s “America” and Hughes’ “I, Too, Sing America.” Both poets show disregard for the treatment they receive but still desire for an America in which African American prejudice does not exist. However, McKay conveys his vision of a bleak, foreboding fate for blacks while Hughes displays his confidence that America will have a hopeful future in which he is treated as an equal.

Life, liberty, freedom, equality, opportunity, and so many other words have been used to describe the United States of America. Every American child grows up with the words “the land of the free” pounded into their heads, and every morning schools declare America as a place of “liberty and justice for all.” Such inflated rhetoric presents America with large shoes to fill. Thus, America’s shortcomings should not be surprising. Langston Hughes and Upton Sinclair were two 20th Century writers, who saw past this idealistic talk and saw the jungle that the United States really was. Langston Hughes wrote in his poem “Let America be America Again”, “Let America be America again. –Let it be the dream it used to be. –Let it be the pioneer on the plain –Seeking a home where himself is free. –(America was never America to me) (1).” He highlights not only the experience of African Americans during the 1930s, but identifies with other oppressed groups including immigrants writing, “I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—And finding only the same old stupid plan –Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.” Likewise, Upton Sinclair conveyed his repulsion to immigrant oppression during the Industrial Revolution in his book The Jungle, emphasizing the gullibility behind trusting the grandiloquence of the American dream.

Honored historians Oscar Handlin and John Bodnar both had their own different viewpoints on the immigrant experience. Even though both contain a little bit of truth when regarding the immigrant experience, neither of them conceptualize the See Family. The See family is a story of growing wealth and success despite being immigrants, yet an overwhelming judgement and facement of difficulties because of the fact. Both Immigration Portrayed as an Experience of Uprootedness, Immigration Portrayed as an Experience of Transplantation, and On Gold Mountain give us truths and different insights as to what it actually was like as an immigrant during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The See Family ignored and defied all immigration

In the novel, The Book of Unknown Americans, Chirstina Heriauvez uses the characterization of Alma to depict an immigrant's´ journey in America to unravel the truth about the dark side of assimilating. The novels demonstrates that immigrants´ are filled with hope at the prospect of starting someplace new which often blinds them to believing that their new place will be better than their current situation. It can easily be impacted by racism, intolerance and the mistreatment of others.

In her opening paragraph, Aurora Levins Morales introduces the main idea of the poem: that she is a multicultural immigrant and that America is the great country that it is today because of immigrants. “I am a child of the Americas, a light-skinned mestiza of the Caribbean, a child of many diaspora, born into this continent at a crossroad. I am a U.S. Puerto Rican Jew, a product of the ghettos of a New York I have never known […] (Morales 1174). She sees her herself as a “Child of Americas” into a “continent at a crossroad.” And also sees herself as a combination of cultures. These various influences are what America is the diverse nation that it is today.

Father?s departure for the North Pole marks the beginning of what the family would have viewed as a decline in their quality of their lives. In truth however, they are merely opening their eyes to a world that is not as perfect as they had perceived. As Father?s ship left the harbor, a passing immigrant ship caught his gaze and he could not remove his eyes from them. He saw ';Thousands of male heads in derbies. Thousands of female heads covered with shawls. It was a rag ship with a million dark eyes staring at him. Father, a normally resolute person, suddenly foundered in his soul. A weird despair seized him.'; (12) At the first sight of hardship in his sheltered life, Father finds himself not knowing what to do, or to feel. He has never seen such poverty at such a close distance, and its very existence causes him to feel afraid almost. In the following chapter, Doctorow proceeds to speak of the immigrants: ?They were filthy and illiterate. They stank of fish and garlic. They had running sores. They had no honor and worked for next to nothing. They stole. They drank. They raped their own daughters. They killed each other casually.'; (13) Father?s unnerving brush with poverty leaves him stricken with hopelessness and a feeling of despair. Yet even then, the family had not witnessed the full truth of the lives of the impoverished immigrants. Doctorow then proceeds to describe in harsh, uncensored terms the

Present in the different novels of E.L. Doctorow are many themes, ranging from the impact of technology on society to the drastic effects of war. All of his books have something in common: the prevalence of the American dream. The United States of America was founded around the fact that anybody can come here and succeed with the right amount of effort. Ironically, the people that praise the United States oppress blacks and other minorities so that they cannot succeed. In E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, Booker T. Washington advocates the abandonment of the pursuit of the American dream by illustrating the sacrifices that many African-Americans were willing to make to obtain racial peace.

The arrival of immigrants into developed nations has been a common trend for centuries, but so has the wave of resentment from natives of the land towards those who are migrants. Adichie illustries this migrant struggle through Americanah, which explores the hardships migrants must face with trying to be accepted into the new society. With her portrayal of the immigrant tendency to assimilate, Adichie skillfully highlights the pain associated with losing essential parts of one’s true identity.