Peter Skrzynecki's Migrant Hostel

One’s commitment of immigrating to a new country for a better life indicates that oneself is ready to risk the life given to them by facing many hardships along the way. In the novel Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario, Enrique does exactly that, risking his own life at the age of seventeen in order to reunite with his mother who left him when he was five in order to obtain a better job in the US and give Enrique and his older sister everything she thought they deserved. Nazario utilizes an emotional appeal and metaphors to inform readers of the arduous situations migrants experience on their long and tiring journey in search of a family member and a better future.

The hostel is depicted as a place of insecurity where the individual identity has been removed and replaced with anonymity and insignificance ‘no one kept count of all the comings and goings’ and ‘arrivals of newcomers in busloads’. The poet also highlights the migrants need to seek out the familiar in people with the same nationality or culture, in search of a place to belong and a link to their former identities by connecting with other migrants, ‘ Nationalities sought each other out instinctively’.

Immigrants coming to America in the late 1800’s had an idea of what it might be like in the land of opportunity, but the harsh reality of the living conditions during this time only became apparent when they reached the shore. In Thomas Bell’s novel, Out of This Furnace, he describes the hardships Slovak immigrants faced throughout generations living in the industrial towns. Through Bell’s novel he clearly depicts the mindsets of each generation and how they changed their attitudes and thinking to better succeed and escape poverty.

Tenement life was tough in New York City at the turn of the nineteenth century, as portrayed in the historical novel, City of Orphans. This portrayal depicted an immigrant family that was living hand to mouth in a tenement. This depiction is very accurate to the harsh reality that many families had to come to face. It was tough from the conditions, lifestyles, and space. Maks ' family was barely living off their earnings and was susceptible to disease and fraud. The immigrants were easy targets for poverty and sickness, and all too often fell through cracks in the floor. Their lives, as bad as they were, were not as bad as the ones they led in the countries they fled from to escape prosecution and to seek a better life.

“Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.” ― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose. Outcasts United, by Warren St. John, follows the stories of war-torn refugees that found themselves in the small town community of Clarkston. Tensions were high as the wave of new culture clashed with the status quo of “Old Clarkston” residents. However, in light of the unstable situation, a group of young boys were able to find their home on the soccer field. The human need for belonging is explored in this book. However, refugees have an extremely difficult journey to acceptance due to the isolating tendencies that resettlement can cause.

Many people are from war stricken areas overseas looking for refuge in the United States. In numerous ways the reader can see a cultural difference in the way that Americans feel about the way that folks from overseas fit in here in the United States. Luma’s friends were afraid because, “a Muslin women from Jordan wouldn’t fit in Down in Dixie” (24). This shows the reader how a large amount of people may view those from across the sea. In a different instance, the author switches to a different family and the reader sees more insight on how the world is disconcerting those trying to start a new life. Just as Beatrice, a newly single mother of three sons, is walking home from work, “A man was following her…she felt the man’s hand on her arm…Beatrice let go of the bag…and she took off running herself in the opposite direction” (31). The reader also sees an instance of police brutality towards a Nigerian immigrant. All of these instances show the trouble that those from overseas may be experiencing. Now as the book goes on the reader gets a sense of the community around those and how those first settled

Change Have you ever imagined what would happen if you suddenly had to move to a new country? The following texts show the hardships of being an immigrant, they also display how being an immigrant affects people's everyday lives. “My Favorite Chaperone” by Jean Davies Okimoto is about immigrants adapting to a new country and lifestyle. “The Latehomecomer” by Kao Kalia Yang is about immigrants adjusting to a new house. “My Favorite Chaperone” and “The Latehomecomer” are both texts where the characters were immigrants but they also are different genres.

The Displaced Person by Flannery O’Connor is about a family fleeing Poland some time around World War II and how they find solace at a farm. The theme that runs through this story is racism and how it affects people. O’Connor shows this through the plot and the characters in her story.

Life in the refugee camp was very difficult due to many conflicts resulting from political instability. In addition, food was limited and most of the nights we would go to sleep on empty stomachs. At night there were times when people would have to rotate keeping watch due to armed robbers.

Carol Mortland in Transforming Refugees in Refugee Camps applies Turner’s model of liminality and rite of passage to the people who “move from one society to another, between cultural, linguistic, ethnic, even national and social groups” which makes the model useful to describe the transformation of refugees in the camps. At first, she identifies several ways her model might differ from the original concept of liminality and then emphasizes the features of the refugee camp which are consistent with it. Unlike Turner’s analysis, in case of refugees, one cannot observe reintegration and “return to the normal order of things” since that order have never been familiar and normal for refugees. Although individuals and groups challenge existing beliefs

The symbolism of being lost is a universal immigrant theme that occurs throughout many immigrant literatures, particularly in Henry Roth’s Call it Sleep. Language, or lack of understanding it, has a profound contribution to the process of being lost. This contribution is shown earlier in the book, in a passage where David is lost trying to find his way home (Passage 1) and is mirrored later on in the book, when David and Aunt Bertha are lost in a museum (Passage 2). The restriction of the usage of language in both passages portrays to us the inevitable and ubiquitous immigrant dilemma: I talk, eat, and live like this new country

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.

The texts ‘The Last Night’ by Sebastian Faulks and ‘Refugee Blues’ by W.H. Auden are similar in a sense that they both describes the suffering and alienation of the Jews at the time of World War Two. However, they are not identical as ‘The Last Night’ is an extract from Sebastian Faulk’s book describing the suffering of the French Jew 's journey before they were deported to a concentration camp whereas ‘Refugee Blues’ is a poem about the hardships of the refugees that fled from Germany before the Holocaust to Britain.

Ever since the first humans left their homes two million years ago in search of a new place to live, immigration has been prevalent in our history, present and future. Every immigrant has a story to tell: a reason on why they left their home, and an explanation for why they would migrate to this newfound destination and how it would provide a better life. Each of these stories are unique, and while some prove to be an easier migration, others show how difficult immigration was for them and all the challenges that they faced even after settling in their new home. The novels Of Beetles and Angels by Mawi Asgedom and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini illustrate the lives of immigrants and the difficulties faced before, during and after the move. Despite the similarities of the novels, of Beetles and Angels and The Kite Runner provide unique accounts on the immigration process and how it impacted their lives forever. Novels like The Kite Runner proves how fiction can portray immigration accurately by being compared with Of Beetles and Angels, a memoir.

Though “Men In The Sun” is entertaining, a close scrutiny of the story from a literary perspective reveals deeper representations of the lives of refugees who live in the middle East. In particular, the story captures the refugees’ desires to escape from their undesirable pasts and live better lives in future. This is an aspect that is relatable me because the widespread conflict and increasing number of refugees in the Middle East is readily perceivable. On this basis, “pastfuture” and “nextness” stand out in the story. “Men In The Sun” presents characters whose individual and collective experiences involve escaping from their past and seeking a better future particularly through relocation, and this forms the main basis for the author’s representation of “pastfuture” and “nextness”.