San Diego Summary

Eventually the Garcia’s trailed away from manual labor and began to work in the dry goods business. In many states of the United States, particularly in Texas, Mexican Americans faced prejudice and discrimination daily. Although there was constant violence and judgement casted upon himself and his family Dr. Garcia’s fight for survival and equality stood unshaken. Hector Garcia’s “youth was a lesson” (Sanchez Part 2). Dr. Garcia not only learned academically, but he learned through everyday life. He learned how to cope and live with the discrimination that would persist into his adulthood.

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,”

Every immigrant has a personal story, pains and joys, fears and victories, and Junot Díaz portrays much of his own story of immigrant life in “Drown”, a collection of 10 short stories. In each of his stories Diaz uses a first-person narrator who is observing others to speak on issues in the Hispanic community. Each story is related, but is a separate picture, each with its own title. The novel does not follow a traditional story arc but rather each story captures a moment in time. Diaz tells of the barrios of the Dominican Republic and the struggling urban communities of New Jersey.

The city has a mild year-round climate with an average of 201 days above 70 degrees. A sign of global warming is that the average surface temperature of the water has increased 3 degrees since 1950. San Diego lies on approximately 200 deep canyons and hills, creating small pockets of natural open space scattered throughout the city and giving it a mountainous geography. Due to this scattered open space, it causes a significant change in climate over short geographical distances. The San Diego River runs through the middle of San Diego while several reservoirs lie between and also separate the developed areas. The city also runs through two fault zones, the Rose Canyon and Point Loma faults, which are part of the San Andreas Fault system. It

The formation of San Diego region involved numerous activities which varied from volcano activities, the formation of Gulf, uplifting and tilting among others. These activities happened in a long span of time creating three distinct geomorphic regions: the west of peninsular rangers, peninsular ranges region, and the Salton Trough region. The geomorphic division reflects the basic difference amid geographic parts containing Mesozoic metavolcanic, metasedimentary, and plutonic rock material. The development of these features resulted to the occurrence of the current San Diego state. The integration of different rocks, volcanic activities, and subduction processes resulted to the development of peninsular region and Salton Trough.

Chinese immigrant Lee Chew chronicles the transition from life in China to a new and challenging life in America. Chew immigrated to America at the age of 16, leaving his father’s farm to achieve economic success in America. Chew lived all over America, first in San Francisco, and then eventually Chew traveled to New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Buffalo. Chew worked at many different jobs all over the country, in New York, Chew worked for a mining company. It states, “We were there three years with the railroad, and then went to the mines, where we made plenty of money in gold dust...” (LC, 77). The quote illustrates how Chew transitioned from one job to the next with ease. Not only does the quote show how finding a job took little skill, but it also shows that anyone could find a job and earn a wage. Chew, an immigrant, earning a job,

San Francisco today is not the same place it was hundreds of years ago. This is obvious in terms of the city’s modernization, but a change that is equally as important, is the huge amount of diversity in cultures. Chances are, if you were to ask a student at Skyline College if their parents were born in the United States, many of them would answer no. Every immigrant has their own story of how they ended up in San Francisco, but the most important are the stories of the very first groups. Most first generation Filipino Americans hear about the stories of how their families ended up in the United States, but never the stories of how the very first Filipinos got here. Why did the first group of Filipinos leave all that they had in the the

In an excerpt from the “Los Angeles Notebook,” Joan Didion challenges the relationship between scientific reasoning and human intuition by using changes in tone when describing a metaphorical natural phenomenon. The Santa Ana winds arguably have an “uneasy” presence in Los Angeles, as they settle some “unnatural stillness.” Didion describes the sound, sight, and feeling of the winds, yet there is little specificity in the way the winds are described. “Given over to whatever is in the air,” and “some tension” are refer to something unclear, and so because the language is somewhat vague and thus up to interpretation, the reader is forced to conceptualize the exact circumstance of the winds. “Unnatural stillness” and hearing “sirens in the night,” are two feeling that are

Chapter ten begins in the California area, with the gentle Californian Indians. During this time there lived a Modoc by the name of Kintpuash, who later was given the nickname Captain Jack. The settlers and soldiers living in the area did not like the Indians and issued a treaty for the Modocs to move farther up north and receive food and supplies. The Modocs agreed to the treaty and moved up north, but when they did not get along with the neighboring Indians, they requested their homeland back. They tried to negotiate with the soldiers but that resulted in increased tensions which later turned into a fight. The soldiers fought and chased the Modocs but had trouble finding them and eventually gave up. After some time, the Modocs came back to

As a result of the historical events which took place in the novel, the economy was on a downturn. Since consumers lost buying power, a proportional relationship between the decrease of industrial production and business failure was created. The staggering combination of inflation and increase in unemployment rates resulted in many individuals losing their farms, businesses and homes. Consequently, many people migrated to western states such as California, hoping that because of its geographical location and economical development during the past years, it would be beneficial and filled with career opportunities. Nevertheless, this wasn’t the case. The majority of those who migrated were slapped in the face by reality and the disappointment

Synopsis. One of the more interesting essays in Rereading America by Colombo, Cullen, and Lisle was “Looking for Work” by Gary Soto. “Looking for Work” is a narrative of a nine year old Mexican American boy who really desires his family to be the perfect family. His assertion is that he is looking back on his childhood, but tells the story as a child’s point of view. The narrative is placed in the nineteen fifty’s, and focuses on his family experience. The essay indicates the boy lives with his mother, sister, and brother. The boy is the middle child in the family, and he has an older brother and a younger sister. The family always had dinner together, and by doing so it shows strong family background traits portrayed by the author. In

The book “Fresh Fruits, broken bodies, Migrant Farmers in the United States By Seth Holms, is about Triqui migrants, who migrated up and down the west coast of the United States and Mexico, traveling between rural hometowns in Oaxaca and ideas of industrialized agricultural production in California and Washington. From reading this, he came to an understanding that the ethnography of how they made a living, the sorts of problems and harassment they faced, and the dreadful realities of a food system made on the backs of poor migrant workers.  He experienced how the poor suffered taking a hint from his informers, who warned Holmes that crossing the border is a particular kind of suffering, that he needed to hold in order to understand their lives.

According to this article, the California Department of Water Resources released a new NASA report showing land in the San Joaquin Valley sinking rapidly, nearly 2 inches per month in some locations. Sinking land, also known as subsidence, is due to excessive ground water pumping during drought conditions and has occurred in California for decades. To obtain this data NASA compared satellite images of Earth’s surface over time and used interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) observations to produce maps of subsidence. As a result, researchers were able to produce time histories of subsidence at specific locations.

Racism as well as immigration, class and acceptance of minorities have been a highly discussed issue well known throughout the world. In many cases, we are able to see and identify the problems that immigrants may face while coming into the U.S, as well as those problems they face while already living here. In the novel written by T.C. Boyle, however, as readers we are introduced to a variety of different emotions and ideas as told from two completely different families living in Topanga Canyon. In the book The Tortilla Curtain, as readers we are introduced to many issues including racism, the wealth gap, and the internal conflict of pressure Delaney faces by society against immigrants. In the beginning of the story we are introduced to characters

America’s Part 1 begins with Allos catching sight of what he thinks to be his oldest brother Leon, who fought in a “strange war in Europe”(p4), walking slowly towards their home. He had never met Leon - he only knew him from the picture in his house. This unfamiliar sparks little Allos’ interest in America, a strange and almost exotic land that offers promise and success; far more than what he has in the Philippines. Allos was born into an impoverished farming family in the rural area of Luzon. Although Allos doesn’t mind the rigorous work, he recognizes that he would remain in the same social class that he was born to. Even at a young age, Allos realizes that the whole system is shady and expresses it, “There were no usury laws and we the peasants were the victims of large corporation and absentee landlords. … it was merely a bait tossed by politicians…”(p23). Because of this, Allos decided he would work in other areas to save enough money so that he could then move to America. Part 2