Picture Bride Essay

Since the establishment of the colonies, America has been viewed as the “land of opportunity.” It is thought to be a safe haven for immigrants, and a chance at a new beginning for others. “The Clemency of the Court” by Willa Cather published in 1893, tells the story of Serge, a Russian immigrant, who overcame the struggles of a tough childhood and fled to America to receive protection from the state. “Clothes” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni published in 1995, tells the story of Sumita, a Indian immigrant, who is moving to America so that she can marry her husband that her family has arranged for her. Both “The Clemency of the Court” and “Clothes” show the evolution of the American immigrant experience.

“Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us (p. 111).” These words, spoken by Ántonia, the protagonist of the novel ‘My Ántonia’, give light to the situation immigrants found themselves in after moving to the North America’s Western frontier. This novel reveals how immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s had to overcome numerous obstacles on the path towards ‘The American Dream’ which those native to the area did not have to face.

For first generation immigrants in North America, acceptance into the mainstream society requires them to “learn or improve their English language skills and adapt to its cultural practices” (Liu 1). Liu believes second generation immigrants are better equipped to accomplish this because they are either “born in the host country or migrated at a young age” (1). When Nao’s family moved to Sunnyvale, Nao learned English quickly and internalized American values and norms. Nao was young and had “no memory of Japan from when [she] was a baby” (43), which explains her rapid adjustment to America. Unlike her parents, Nao never had a

“The Arrival,” by Shaun Tan, is a wordless novel that depicts the experience immigrants go through when vacating their home countries to start new in a different country. Readers can see that on the first page there is a collage of headshots from multiple people of different ethnicity and religion. The first image page of the wordless novel helps viewers get a clearer image of what the novel is about. In “The Arrival,” Shaun Tan depicts the hardships and enjoyment that immigrants experience when moving to a new country, since the piece was written in 2006, there seems to be more hardships than enjoyment when coming to the United States, which means the idea of the United States being a melting pot is flawed.

These immigrant children did not choose to come to America, they came with their parents. Most of these American are trying to make a good life for themselves. In the first person account “Amy’s Story” Amy, an undocumented Taiwanese immigrant, tells of her struggles to make a life for herself in the United States. When Amy is fifteen, she discovers that “California Proposition 187 took away access to public services, including driver's licenses, from undocumented immigrants.” Later, as she struggles to find a job, she is told by her attorney that marrying an American citizen is “the easiest way to become legal in this country.” Despite her many challenges, she writes about how despite everything [her] family has experienced in this country, [she] would not choose to be anywhere else” (“Amy’s Story”).

Life in America for immigrants was destined to take a new turn after the 1924 national origins quota act legislation whose main target was to exclude immigrants who were considered undesirable. The undesirable immigrants were mainly those who had migrated to United States of America but could not pass the bar of eligibility to become American citizens. It is then that investigations on what was occasioning racial conflicts as well as what had motivated such immigrants to settle in the pacific coast were launched by a group of sociologists, and this is how we come to meet Flora Belle who is one of the interviewees and who strongly denounces her traditional cultural values. She portrays herself as a modern woman throughout her interview as well as her life and this paper will therefore seek to establish the ways in which Flora portrays herself as a modern woman alongside her take on traditional cultural as well as gender values. The first instance in which Flora takes a modern woman depiction upon herself is when her mother took to the shrine with her in order to worship there and also give a plate of food to their god. At this point and instead of her offering herself to the worship as per their traditions she slams down a plateful of rice intended for the idol and in its presence. “So long old top, I don’t believe in you anyway”, she utters in denunciation of their traditional religious faith. This of course she did not anticipate her mother to applause for and we are

For millions of immigrants, America has been seen as the land of opportunity where anyone could become anything he or she wanted to be. A family that believes strongly in the American dream can be found in Amy Tan’s short story, “Two Kinds.” The story centers around the daughter of a Chinese immigrant who desperately wants her daughter to become successful. In the story, the author shows the difficult lives immigrants face when moving to a new culture. In this short story, the theme shows the protagonist’s conflict with her mother on the type of daughter her mother wants her to be. The author establishes the theme of how difficult mother-daughter relationships can be through characterization, setting, and symbolism.

(Torres Fernández et al., 8) In the U.S. immigration is widely discussed and it is given bad credibility as negative views develop of immigrants as a whole. Cecila, another one of the interviewees described the lack of acceptance in the U.S., she pronounced feeling worthless and belittled in the U.S. society; according to Cecilia, the anti-immigration policies made her feel like she was nobody. (Torres Fernández et al., 8) These negative emotions have a direct impact on migrant’s daily lives, it affects their families and their work life, it is a haunting reality. (Torres Fernández et al., 8)

I wouldn’t want to meet my ‘soulmate’ through picture brides because it’s unconventional and insincere. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that both parties thought they were benefiting their own interests going into a picture bride marriage. I admit that there was a lot of deception involved, however that didn’t change the fact that going through with their marriage was arrange on the circumstances of their self-interests. For the brides, some would be from poor families and needed money. Obviously what they found in America wasn’t what they expected. But they never loved the American on the other side, but they found the opportunity too hard to pass. They needed to make money to support their family. On the other side, most of the men were poor farmers that highly likely weren’t going to find true love, so they decided to create some of it.

These days, most couples don’t resonate with the traditional plastic bride and groom cake toppers. You remember, the formally attired bride and groom with big plastic smiles, painted on their little plastic faces. Yet, some couples do want a traditional wedding, complete with all the rituals.

No couple wants to be charged more than what they are getting when their wedding is being planned. In today’s society, there are not many limits to becoming a wedding planner. This means that people that who are inexperienced are planning weddings and charging their clients a high price for bad service. This makes it harder for us, as a wedding planning business, to charge clients accordingly, because they do not trust our pricing judgment. We need to get more talented professionals in the forefront so that both our clients and our company can receive what they deserve.

When it's time for the bride to be to start dress shopping, smart brides head over to see us at Grace Style and Bridal in Phoenix, AZ. The smart bride to be knows that we stock the most beautiful, stylish, and unique dresses around. Our dress sales not only cover the bride to be, but also her bridesmaids. Our stunning bridesmaid dresses are designed so that the bridesmaid is proud to wear it. Our brides dresses are made by well known wedding designers. We select a wide array of dress styles, fabrics, and cuts so that we have something to please everyone.

I’ve had the air kicked out of me playing backyard football with the neighborhood kids, but it isn’t at all comparable to standing in front of a mirror getting ready for my wedding in a much too expensive Brooks Brothers Silver Regent Fit Suit decorated with a lime green bow tie— because at least in my backyard the oxygen came back into my lungs. Today, rays of light beam through the multi-colored leaf shaped windows, creating patterns in the air. The dressing room is library quiet except for the crack of my voice as I practice saying “I do” and the loose planks that creak as I pace the ancient wood floor. I am alone with my wedding planner Marcus who is buzzing all over the place manically scratching items off his checklist. His long scarlet blazer sways like a matador’s red cloth in a bullfight. The muscles he gets from boxing, his favorite hobby, are defined by his tight gray t-shirt, which is paired with too tight denim jeans, accentuating his flamboyant salmon scarf and brown worn Chelsea boots. Not evangelical wedding attire, but I cannot complain. Marcus is quirky, with his elevated mop of tight russet brown ringlets, smooth tawny beige skin, and gigantic Lindor truffle eyes. Just looking at him makes you want to learn more. Marcus stops energetically buzzing around and looks at me after hearing my “I do.”

The day of the wedding is the most important day in a person's life by far. It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman, you surely fantasized at least once about how it would be, and most of the decisions about the food, music and location have already been made in them. But when the date has been chosen and the final moment is approaching rapidly, you have a lot of planning to do for everything to be perfect. This can be really stressing and many tough choices are involved along the way. Here are some useful tips for planning the perfect wedding.

I’ve had the air kicked out of me playing backyard football with the neighborhood kids, but it wasn’t at all comparable to standing in front of a mirror getting ready to get married in a much too expensive Brooks Brothers Silver Regent Fit Flannel Windowpane 1818 Suit decorated with a lime green bow tie, because at least in my backyard the oxygen came back into my lungs. Rays of light beam through the multi colored leaf shaped windows, creating patterns in the deadly air. The dressing room is library quiet except for the crack of my voice as I unconvincingly practice saying I do and the creaky loose planks as I pace the archaic wood floor. It’s just me and my wedding planner Marcus who is buzzing all over the place manically scratching off his check list. His long scarlet blazer swaying around as he picks up wind like a matadors red cloth in a bullfight. The muscles he gets from his boxing hobby are defined by his tight gray t shirt, paired with too tight denim jeans, accentuating his flamboyant salmon scarf, and brown worn in Chelsea boots. Not evangelical wedding attire, but I can’t complain, he’s quirky, with his elevated mop of tight russet brown ringlets, smooth tawny beige skin, and gigantic Lindor truffle eyes, just looking at him makes you want to learn more. Marcus stops energetically buzzing around and looks at me after hearing my I do.