Rowan Williams Journey

In “How to Write a Memoir” William Zinsser gives very detailed and important advice to writers interested in writing a memoir. He gives the specific advice of “Be yourself,” “Speak Freely,” and “Think Small” (Zinsser, 2, 4, 6). These tips advise writers to not only think about what they want to say in their story but also how they want to tell their story. Many memoir authors choose to follow this advice and write their story using these points, but many do not. In the memoir “A Summer Life”, Gary Soto follows Zinsser’s writing advice through his use of writing from the point of view of a young child, speaking freely about his early life events, and writing about his life in small structure chapters.

Throughout the essay “New Perspective” by: Janice E. Fein, she explores in immense detail how she suffered as a child who grew up with a mother that was very ill. She explains the hardships she underwent and expressed how she felt “cheated in life”. As a small child she could only remember her mother walking her to kindergarten once, as she describes in the essay, but after that she could only remember her mother laying in a “massive” and “ugly” hospital bed. As a child, its difficult sometimes to understand and grasp complicated situations like this. Most of the time children only hold one perspective of things, their own. Fein discusses the impact her mother’s illness had on her childhood and how it taught her later on in life when she became

The story of my history as a writer is a very long one. My writing has come full circle. I have changed very much throughout the years, both as I grew older and as I discovered more aspects of my own personality. The growth that I see when I look back is incredible, and it all seems to revolve around my emotions. I have always been a very emotional girl who feels things keenly. All of my truly memorable writing, looking back, has come from experiences that struck a chord with my developing self. This assignment has opened my eyes, despite my initial difficulty in writing it. When I was asked to write down my earliest memory of writing, at first I drew a blank. All of a sudden, it became very clear to me, probably because it had some

The details on how my family arrived in America have been passed down by various members of my family. The accuracy and detail of these memories have diminished with every retelling. Some of my family arrived in America so long ago that all that remains of their experiences are rumors and stretched truths. As a story gets retold over and over it loses much of its accuracy. While much of my family history relies on this kind of storytelling, there are some in my family who were alive and experienced the challenges faced by immigrants. Though born in the United States, my maternal grandfather, Sebastian Passantino, was very familiar with the hardships of being an immigrant.

In the story “Four Stations in His Circle”, Austin Clarke reveals the negative influences that immigration can have on people through characterization of the main character, symbols such as the house that Jefferson dreams to buy and the time and place where the story takes place. The author demonstrates how immigration can transform someone to the point that they abandon their old culture, family and friends and remain only with their loneliness and selfishness.

The family is struggling to find their identity in the face of this illness. Each family member reflects values in keeping with their Southern Baptist background with faith playing an integral role in their daily lives.

The book is neither meant to be a theological treatise nor an academic exposition but a toolkit to unleash human potentials; a resource for intervention in dealing with human life hurts and as a channel of Gods healing and liberation through Jesus Christ.

Mary Gordon concludes her essay in an interesting way in which she compares American history to a “very classy party that was not much fun until they (the immigrants) arrived” (1013). Throughout her essay, she describes the prejudice and the hardships immigrants faced as they entered Ellis Island. She explains how immigrants are unappreciated for the role they had in shaping American culture and are instead remembered for the suffering they experienced. Ellis Island represents that not all of American history is honorable and glorious, but from Gordon’s perspective it should be. Coming from immigrant descent, Gordon sympathizes with the fact that her ancestors went through tough situations in order to establish a home in the United States.

Before introducing any major events, or analysis, it’s important to note that this autobiographical work was only made possible with the aid of written documentation, and tales passed on from the family and the community. This is imperative because a great portion of the piece focuses on events that Edwidge didn’t experience first-hand, so she heavily stresses on the details being re-surfaced through friends and family to complete a holistic emigration story. Family history and the involvement of cherishing family moments is often an overlooked form of communication, but without this, this and many other important minority stories would have never been complied in a way where we can now discuss them in a culturally-reflective academic setting, like this course.

When a child receives an emotional wound, it often creates an ‘infection’ that they must spend their lives overcoming and growing beyond. Mary Karr lived through a very difficult childhood and adolescence, and her reaction to it and attempts to escape from the pain caused a self-perpetuating cycle of pain and addiction in her life. Eventually, she realized that her dependency on alcohol was hurting her son and causing her to act like her mother, so she, reluctantly, turned to others and eventually the Lord for help. She learned to pray and submit instead of depend on herself and it radically changed her life. She never would have expected it when she was young, but over time praying became as necessary to her as breathing.

After reading “The New Second Generation,” by Protes and Zhou, the understanding of grow up in an immigrant family has been hard for most people, and some individuals are divided by the struggles of cultural demands and new unfamiliar environment. The second generation immigrants had a different experience than the first generation immigrants, whereas the second generation often time will be confused of what pathway they should follow, such as pleasing their cultural background yet trying to explore a new society. Even the second generation had dealt with conflicts due to the nature of their skin, such as descendants of European immigrants were treated better than the descendants of Mexico, Asia, or

Immigration and assimilation is a divisive topic that has been heavily debated in America ever since we became a country. There are two stories that explore the assimilation issue from different viewpoints’; in Mary Pipher’s story; “The Beautiful Laughing Sisters – An Arrival Story”; provides the viewpoint of immigrants leaving a hostile home for America. Elizabeth Wong details her journey to break with her culture and become Americanized in, “The Struggle to be an all American girl.” and (McWhorter, 2010 pp522-529). At debate today is whether immigrants and their families should blend into American culture even if it means breaking with their past. Once cultures intermingle, they are forever changed.

The trials and tribulations of being human take many forms. From the joys of relationships to the lows of disease the human condition is wide varied and complex. Unique to the human journey on earth is the ability to ask and ponder big abstract questions such as “Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? and Why do bad things happen to good people?” These ultimate questions are timeless and often without answers, such as determining an answer as to why people suffer. The ultimate question regarding why people suffer differs from person to person. Suffering can be described as “an aversive emotional experience characterized by the perception of personal distress that is generated by adverse factors undermining the quality of life” (Taylor Ronan, 2017) When an individual is diagnosed with cancer there are many who will suffer and face many obstacles. The patient going through the life-changing experience will suffer, grieve and question their quality of life. The patient’s family and friends will suffer from a sense of powerlessness in not being able to help and all will suffer a sense of loss for what might have been. This suffering is borne by those affected in many and varying ways. One’s personal situation, family background, upbringing and education may all affect how one manages the suffering they experience. However, the faith based education allows one

There were so many different groups of immigrants over the hundred-year period that defines the early immigration years that worked and lived in different cities across America, and creating a synthesis allows us to compare them all at once in thematic contexts to test assumptions and turn them into truths. Bodnar draws on the ideas of Thomas Bender, who advocated for synthetic histories in his article “Whole and Parts: The Need for Synthesis in American History.” In the article, Bender calls for syntheses because they have the responsibility of providing an image of society. And, in order to do that, he cogently argues that the whole scope of the story has to be examined, rather than just the parts. Bender rejects focusing on the individual when it comes to studying American history, writing that in doing so, “we get no image of the whole, and no suggestions about how the parts might go together or even whether they are intended to go together.” Essentially, Bender spells out that it is not possible to tell the story of American history without examining each part that made it up to understand how those parts worked together, interacted, and affected one another. Nothing acts alone; everything is influenced by something. We cannot understand the “why” and “how” questions that life asks without synthesizing the millions of stories that make up history to uncover layers of inner and outer

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.