A Quilt of a Country and The Immigrant Contribution Compare/Contrast Essay Simply put, America is the land of opportunity. In the past, immigrants have left most of their family, memories, and familiarities with their homeland in search of a better life in America, where jobs were easy to find and the economy was booming. These immigrants formed almost the entire American population, a demographic anomaly in which people from nationalities separated by land and sea; these people come from countries separated by expansive distances can live within the same neighborhood. Both Anna Quindlen with her essay “A Quilt of a Country” and John F. Kennedy with his essay “The Immigrant Contribution” have documented the story of these immigrants and …show more content…
Another excerpt in Kennedy’s essay supports the aforementioned claim by using the formal and sophisticated dictions, which is written as follows: “But nearly all shared two great hopes: the hope for personal freedom and the hope for economic opportunity.” (Kennedy, 24). The formal diction expresses how immigrants have come to America with a hope shared by nearly all, a simple yet formal request: to have personal freedom and enjoy economic opportunity. This piece of evidence supports my claim that both Quindlen and Kennedy share the use of the formal diction in their writing. Both of the essays by Anna Quindlen and John F. Kennedy, respectively, share many similarities, one of which is the use of the formal diction in their writing. On the other hand, the essays “A Quilt of a Country” by Anna Quindlen and “The Immigrant Contribution” by John F. Kennedy, they differ in the way that Quindlen tends to use the poetic diction in her writing, while Kennedy typically leans towards using the sophisticated diction in his writing. For example, in this passage found in Quindlen’s essay, the dictions of technical, poetic, and sophisticated are used. Quindlen writes: “Once these disparate parts were held together by a common enemy, by the fault lines of world war and the electrified fence of communism.” (Quindlen, 15) The poetic diction used in this section of the essay helps paint the picture that once, the United
Globally, the United States has been known as "a nation of immigrants" almost from its inception. Beginning in the 1600s with English Puritans and continuing today, America is a melting pot of culture and ethnicity. In fact, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigration was the major source of U.S. population growth. Looking over our 200+ years we find that to clearly be true, with approximately 1 million immigrants coming to America during the 17th and 18th century. Almost 3 million arrived during the 1860s, and another 3 million in the 1870s. In the next four decades, the number of immigrants rose to over 25 million people, most from various European nations, most arriving in New York or one of the Eastern seaports (Damon, 1981). Despite the politicization, as of 2006, the United States actually was the number one country globally to accept legal immigrants into the country, with a current immigrant population of almost 40 million (Terrazas and Batalova, 2009). In fact, the peak of immigration was 1907, when over 1.2 million Europeans entered the country beginning a push towards legislation limiting immigration in the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1924 and the 1921 Congressional Quota Act. These immigrants came for two sociological reasons: the push factor (wars, famine, persecution and overpopulation) and the pull factors (jobs and the promise of freedom). Most came by ship, and a passage often cost the equivalent of an entire life's savings causing many
The diction and the tone of a story help structure a prompt for a writing work. The authors of “The Immigrant Contribution” and “A Quilt of a Country” uses diction and tone to build up their essays. Diction makes tone since the word choices produce how the author wants their audience to understand what he/she purposed on their writing. Without diction or tone, a writing would become boring and meaningless. Using the stories that were mentioned earlier, I will find how diction and tone support the author’s claim.
Dating from the early 1900’s, till this day, people are still risking their lives to pursue the “American Dream”,in the pursuit of happiness and wealth. There are some obvious differences, but one underlying reason. They all come from a different country. According to Boustan, Platt, About 30 million immigrants arrived in the United States during this time. By 1910, 22 percent of the U.S. labor force was foreign born. It is much harder making it across the border legally. The greatest similarity of the 1900’s immigrants and today is that they both come for economic improvement.
Simply put, America is the land of opportunity. In the past, immigrants have left most of their family, memories, and familiarities with their homeland in search of a better life in America, where jobs were easy to find and the economy was booming. These immigrants formed almost the entire American population, a demographic anomaly in which people from nationalities separated by land and sea; these people come from countries separated by expansive distances can live within the same neighborhood. Both Anna Quindlen with her essay “A Quilt of a Country” and John F. Kennedy with his essay “The Immigrant Contribution” have documented the story of these immigrants and what they have done to contribute to the great country of the United States of America. Both authors have written in their own unique style which has changed the reader’s perspective of their accomplishments, contributions, and sense of community in their new nation. In the essays “A Quilt of a Country” by Anna Quindlen and “The Immigrant Contribution by John F. Kennedy, they show similar writing styles by both using the formal diction in their writing, and contradict in the way that Quindlen takes a more poetic approach in her writing, while Kennedy, being the President of the United States, uses more sophisticated dictions.
Quindlen and Kennedy have similarities and differences in their styles.Both authors qoute outside sources to support what they're trying to get across. However, Kennedy uses factual data to make a better understanding, and Quindlen uses Metaphors/ Analogies. First ”The National Opinion Research center agreed with this statement:’The U.S. is a unique country that stands for something special in the world ’ ” (Quindlen 15).Secondly “A German farmer wrote home from Missouri in 1834, If you wish to see our whole family living in… a country where freedom of speech obtains , where no spies are eavesdropping, were no simpletons criticize your every word and seek to detect therein a venom that might endanger the life of the state, the church
Throughout the history of the United States of America, there have been many leaders. President Abraham Lincoln and President John F. Kennedy are arguably two of the greatest presidents that this country has had. Whether it was 1865, during the bloodiest war in the history of the US, or 1961, during the most tense international power struggle that we have ever faced, these men were able to do what was needed to get the job done. The one ideal that they shared that made them great leaders was an aspiration to make this country the best in the world. Some differences between these men were their specific goals as leaders. While Lincoln was
In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and
“We are nation of immigrants. Some came here willingly, some unwillingly. Nonetheless, we are immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants, one, and all. Even the natives came from somewhere else, originally. All of the people who come to this country come for freedom, or for some product of that extraordinary, illusory condition. That is what we offer here—freedom and opportunity in a land of relative plenty.” (Middletown Journal 2005)
For instance, parallelism such as the statement, “whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, hear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe,” gives flavor to the speech by pointing out opposite words within a single sentence but still making it work. A few antimetaboles are used in the speech, such as “let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate” and “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” make the speech more effective by twisting around the order of the words, or syntax, to get people to realize a point. Additionally, what makes Kennedy’s speech so effective is that he can transition from a simple sentence to a more complex, meaningful one in a matter of lines of the speech. In accordance to the diction, the words in his speech (freedom, poverty, devotion, and loyalty) are considered abstract. This is because they all convey a tone of desire and significant qualities held by friends. They strengthen and add more feeling to the speech as well. However, the archaic words, such as writ and forebears, are used in a manner to bring in the old language as well as the new, therefore there is sophistication as well as understanding. Kennedy also uses juxtaposition when he says, “peaceful revolution,” and this adds spice to the speech because of the contradiction of the two powerful words. Yet
The United States of America has the largest foreign-born population in the world. With nearly thirteen percent of the total population being foreign-born, one may find it hard to imagine an immigrant-free country (U.S. Bureau of the Census). Immigration has been an integral part of the United States’ overall success and the country’s economy since it was established and without it, would have never been founded at all. Although there are some negative issues associated with immigration and many native-born Americans believe to be more of a problem than a solution, overall it actually has a positive effect. Immigrants in America, among other things, fill jobs where native-born Americans may not want to work or cannot work, they contribute
When most people think about immigration to the United States, they think of the U.S. as being the “land of opportunity,” where they will be able to make all of their dreams come true. For some people, immigration made their lives richer and more fulfilled. This however, was not always the case. A place that is supposed to be a “Golden Land” (Marcus 116) did not always welcome people with open arms. Even after people became legal citizens of the United States, often times the natural born Americans did not treat the immigrants as equals but rather as outsiders who were beneath them in some way. In some situations, people’s lives were made worse by coming to the “land of opportunity.” Often times people were living no better than they
In the beginning, President Kennedy starts his speech by addressing the issue at hand by using allusion and powerful diction. Kennedy is speaking to his American audience on the unfitting civil disputes that have erupted throughout the nation during his presidency. “ Today, we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all that wish to be free.” This sentence in Kennedy’s speech demonstrates not only the problem at hand in America using the literary tactic allusion, but it is also used to inspire the American people to make a difference in the world on how we treat each other. That we are all created equal and should as all our mothers have voiced before, “treat others as you would like to be treated.” Thus, making way for conversation to move to the next stage, logics.
Kennedy’s use of anaphora emphasises the idea of coming together and moving forward. Anaphora is shown
Along with its economic classes, American is known for its freedom, its liberty, and the melting pot of ethnicity. This ethnic diversity comes form the immigrant population in the country. However this perfect country is a major falsehood. These untrue ideals of harmony, freedom, success, and equality are deceptive and do not show the struggles that immigrants face when coming to this class dominated country. The immigrants of today do not come from just Europe, but overwhelmingly from Asia and Latin America. “They are driving a demographic shift so rapid that within the lifetimes of today 's teenagers, no one ethnic group – including whites of European descent – will comprise a majority of the nation 's population’ (Colombo, Cullen, Lisle). These immigrants challenge the social myth that everyone has an equal chance in life. They
America is an idea, a set of beliefs about people and their relationships and the kind of society which holds the best hope of satisfying the needs each of us brings as an individual. For countless immigrants, the struggle to arrive in America was rivaled only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the population. Immigrants say they came to America seeking economic opportunity and freedom for themselves and their children, and at the same time they have all, at one time,