Personal Narrative: Two Ways To Belong In America

In “Two Ways to Belong in America”, Bharati Mukherjee explains how it’s possible for immigrants to come to America and still keep their culture. Mukherjee writes her and her sister experience as immigrants in America. While she adjusts and adapts to America’s culture, her sister still holds onto her Indian culture. This essay shows the different viewpoints of how immigrants adapt when they come to America.

Peter Marin’s article “Toward Something American: The Immigrant Soul” explains his views on American life versus American culture and how they differ. He explains that in the average American life it is simply the task of finding and calling the place they now reside in home. “Home is for us, as it is for all immigrants, something to be regained, created, discovered, or mourned-not where we are in time or space, but where we dream of being”. (84) In other words, a new immigrant coming to America and a descendent to new world immigrant still experience the same conflict of American life. In the

Although new generations of men and women born in the United States consider themselves members of a new culture —the American culture— they also acknowledge a bond, even if slight, to the country or countries of their ancestors. Most importantly, nevertheless, is that quite often some consider themselves entitled to the good and bad of their country of birth, with exclusion of the newcomers, of course. Quite often, these exclusionists are not willing to mutual

An american story is a story revolving around his or her lifestyle, culture and everyday habits. This is about past experiences, accomplishments, and biggest downfalls. I will be discussing not only my biggest accomplishments, but also my biggest failures that I have occurred in life. What will my american story be? Keep reading to find out.

Ever since people started coming to America, those that were here before them wondered why they came! Is it for freedom or for the idea that America is "The Land of Opportunity?" In this paper, I am going to look at the reasons "Immigrants" come to America. I will also discuss both their views of themselves and how Americans view them. The question I pose to answer throughout this paper is "When will Immigrants not be Immigrants anymore and become "Americans?"

The reading “Two ways to Belong in America,” is a strong example about how immigrants live changes since they decide to move into another country. This change is more than an immigration status, for example being resident or citizen. On the contrary, is forced by the new culture, starting by the language that is the principal resource to communicate with others.

Writing is a miracle itself. Believing in miracles can make you a proponent of the second chance in life. Following your dream is life long pursuit of one’s purpose. Sometimes winds of destiny are inflating your sails; sometimes you hit a rough spot in the ocean. The drawbacks are good chance for reflection and readjusting. As a first generation immigrant I had the opportunity to witness myself the land of Opportunities and experience the concept of an American dream first hand. Deciding to come and live in the United States and leaving my whole family behind has been hardiest decision that I have made in my life so far. The doubt that this doubts about that decision has chasing me as a bad dream since the day I have arrived in the United States.

An anonymous poet once said “ABC and NBC do not weep” and “as blood drips from my television screen onto my living room floor, but I walk around it.” This powerfully speaks to the desensitization of the American society, and to twenty-first-century society as a conglomeration. Every night's millions of us sit down to watch some crime series such as Criminal Minds or NCIS. These shows give society a fractured, disjointed account of the justice system and law enforcement, but they also cause us to become comfortable with the idea of murder and a broken justice in a way, “[the] blood drips from [our] television screen onto [our] living room floor[s], but [we] walk around it,” masking the horror and rationalizing it. I have fallen victim to this

Adjusting to American society was more than difficult. I lived my whole life in New Delhi, so it was hard to change my way of living. Traffic was more structured and street vendors were sparse. People did not acknowledge one other on the walkways and farm animals no longer roamed the roads. At school, my thick glasses and lanky body indubitably didn`t assist me in making friends. I was still assimilating to the new language, and no one sought to sit next to the “weird Indian”. I immediately felt like an outcast, incapable of fitting into society. The life I envisioned appeared to be fantasized. I

Growing up in Ghana, I had heard a lot of things about the U.S. This was a country I had always wanted to visit; my prayer was answered when I got the opportunity to travel there. Arriving in a new environment came with many experiences. Adjusting with food, language and the weather was not easy. With the passage of time, however I have been able to0 adjust and fit it. This write-up therefore is to elaborate on my experiences since coming to U.S.

I was born in America, however, my parents sent me back to China when I was 6 months old because of their living conditions. When my parents first came to America, their living conditions were so awful and they both had to work. Therefore, it was difficult for them to work and take care of me at the same time. My journey back to China was filled with wonderful memories. Throughout my journey, my Grandfather had always been my biggest supporter and his death left an impact on me that will last a lifetime.

I was born in Havana, Cuba and lived there for ten years. If I am honest I cannot remember much about Cuba unlike my mother; however even though I cannot remember much I always used to think that Cuba was home regardless of how long we stayed in America. Similar to most children I took after the actions of my parents while growing up. If my mother and grandmother spoke about Cuba or any topic related to it I would listen to them and then I tried to have the same conversation with my uncle as if to let them know that I was thinking about Cuba as well. I used to believe that when we flew over to America we brought Cuba with us and that was a normal thing; however my thinking was changed over the course of only one year in America.

I never imagined I would live in the United States. I was born in Ethiopia, and I grew up in Addis Ababa capital city of Ethiopia, but my childhood was not good because my father passed when I was 3 years old. After my father passed away, my mom helped my sister and me with a lot of things, and she raised us very well and I always grateful for that. My first language is Amharic. English is my second language. I learned English in high school. Amharic is the official language in Ethiopia. So, I came to America 2007. Here in US, the culture is way different from Ethiopia.

Assimilating into the American culture is an arduous challenge. English is my second language, I struggled through language barriers. Throughout elementary school, kids developed callous nicknames for me such as “Muslim terrorist” and “Gandhi” because I spoke in an accent and I was the only Punjabi kid in my class. Since all of my bullies were Mexican, I determined that all other Mexican kids would choose to discriminate against me. I decided to avoid interaction with the other students, which made it harder for me to learn English. I would spend most of my time alone sitting on a bench because I was hesitant of what new nicknames the other kids might devise. However, I wasn’t the only troublesome child who was facing bullying on that bench.

Studying in a foreign country is an interesting experience of an individual lifetime. One tends to learn a number of things relating to ways of life in a foreign land. Social, political and economic values and aspects are usually different from one region to another. Therefore, through studying abroad one is able to learn different issues about another society such as gender and sexuality issues, social class and race/ethnicity issues. Having come from a developing country studying in the U.S.A has been a great experience personally. This paper will attempt to provide a reflection of my personal experience on studying in the U.S by comparing the history of Angola and the U.S.