The Unwanted Quotes

An individual’s fears and need to survive can become a major factor in the buildup of their identities. ‘The Happiest Refugee’ memoir written by Anh Do and the illustrated novel ‘The Boat’ by Nam Le explores how the individual characters’ existence is based upon the strengths and weaknesses that they have acquired from their fears. Do uses the bold ambience Tam Do has to demonstrate how his early life in Vietnam has impacted him in contrast to Lee’s protagonist, Mai who begins to understand how her memories and bonds with her family will helps her endure her journey on the refugee boat.

“Our inventions are wont to be pretty things, we distract our attention from serious things” -Henry David Thoreau. A shocking fact about the book Feed is that Feed was the finalist for the National Book Award. It also won the LA Times Book Award for YA fiction in 2003. There is a quick question for you, would you rather be like Titus or one of his other friends? If you don’t know who Titus was then read more to find out.

The author of “Evacuation Order No 19”, Julie Otsuka emphasizes the triumph of the human spirit through the loss of identity, submission to submission to society, insecurities, the desire to succeed followed by hindered dreams, and the symbolism and irony of the caged bird and white dog. Throughout the story, Otsuka discreetly asks the readers to question and think of human nature as a whole. She wants the readers to sense the loss of agape love through the plight witnessed by the eyes of a Japanese-American family.

Rather its to escape a past or to go and find oneself, running away to live off the land is not the best thing a person should do. Into The Wild is about a person named Christopher McCandless, who runs away from his privileged life to go and find his true self. Into The Wild was written by Jon Krakauer. Christopher McCandless stands out because he is a victim of himself. This character can be described as ignorant, stubborn, and disgruntled.

“I slow, stop, all is silence. I look into the stands, and it all explodes like Chinese New Year. Listen. I'm stupid fast. Seriously," said Felton.

In the novel Unwind, by Neal Shusterman, many kids are subject to a government controlled practice called “unwinding”. When your child turns 13, there is a time gap, until you turn 18, in which you can choose your child to be sent to the government to be well, murdered. If that doesn’t seem crazy enough, it gets worse. The kids whom are unwound, have to get their body parts sent to a hospital to be used for surgeries. When a few more kids are signed up to be unwound, chaos erupts. One of the kids, Risa Ward, chooses to run away from all her problems and escape. Doing this, it proves that Risa is snappy, motherly, and smart.

During the secret war, many families had to leave some of their love ones behind in Laos because there was not enough space, money, and time to come to America. A memoir that Kao Kalia wrote reflects on her memories of childhood, the Hmong family cultures and traditions. Some parts in the book includes how they treated their grandmother when she was ill, her funeral, and things they would do to survive in America as immigrants. This sources is important because it describes how Kao Kalia Yang wrote a memoir to reflect her early journey of as a Hmong

Back in 1900s the younger generation were said to be more naïve to everyday life that their ideas were not as important as the older ones. But the truth is that they are more open to ideas and opinions which include Capitalist and Socialist ideas. Throughout the play the younger generation become more accepting to the right side, the Socialist side. The quote showing this is when Eric said ‘Well, I don’t blame you. But don’t forget I’m ashamed of you as well - yes both of you.’ This quote also shows that once you were on the right side, you became the new and improved older generation. Eric is important in the play to show that the younger generation can change and become better people in the future.

Refugees are people who have no choice but to flee their homes because of either war, persecution or natural disaster. But even if they have different reasons of fleeing, they usually go through the same thing. Misfortunes, hardships and sacrifices are some of the things refugees around the world have to go through. Ha, the main character from the book Inside Out, shows some of those. But Ha also shows how those hardships change her throughout the book. She didn’t get along with her brothers before they had to leave Vietnam. She always wanted to find ways to get at her brothers and try to anger them. She also used to get angry right away, just like when she didn’t get what she wanted, she started to get angry and get what it was or do what it was that she wanted. She always thought of herself first, and did whatever she

Grillo faced many things throughout his life to become the person he is now. Either good or bad all the changes he went through made a big impact in his life. Within the novel Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez, the main character Grillo changes throughout the story when he uses drugs, friends influence him and family problems are encountered.

In this book written by Anne Fadiman in 1997, Fadiman tells the story of a Hmong family from Sainyabuli province Asia. The Lee’s family’s story is one filled with perseverance and mishap. With majority of the book being about Lia Lee, a child with epilepsy. Thought to be caused because of her younger sister slamming a door which released her soul from her body. Leading to the onslaught of problems between the Lee’s family and western medicine. Fadiman discusses these problems in the book as cross-cultural misunderstandings where the Lee’s family and the doctors would miscommunicate impacting Lia, and her treatments. Overall “ The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” discusses many elements mainly of cultural collision, cultural collision, and immigration struggles.

This is the story of a Hmong family, it goes into a very interesting narrative about their history, culture, and traditions. Delving into the Hmong healing rituals and forms of keeping away the spirits that they believed caused illness. The story continued to tell the story of the Lee family’s life and their journey

Pollan believes supersized meals are bad. Reasoning to this statement is from the book saying, “...people will eat up to 30 percent more if they are given larger portions” (82). The quote is a statistic that shows more people are becoming obese from the supersized food and drinks. Another quote from the beginning of the book is, “In the same way, our built-in instincts tell us to eat lots of sugar and fat” (82). Humans today love sugar and foods and drinks being supersized means more sugar and more sugar means you’ve a more likely chance of getting a disease like diabetes.

Fitting in can be a major challenge for anyone in life. It is hard to stay true to yourself, while also fitting in. In the novel The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman, a young girl named Honor struggled with this major challenge of fitting in. She kept isolating herself from her classmates. Fitting in is also a major theme in the short story “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. The main character Margot is a young girl who was very different than her classmates. She was teased for her differences because she remembered something her classmates didn’t remember, and she can’t let go of this memory. Allegra Goodman and Ray Bradbury both develop the theme of fitting in in their novels;

““The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”-Martin Luther King, Jr.” In the past couple of weeks in class we have been reading Kindred by Octavia Butler. The genre of the book is Science fiction. It is about a young woman by the name of Dana who goes back in time and time travels back to the 1800’s. She meets some of her ancestors and makes friend with them. There is Rufus, Alice, Nigel, Sara, Tom Weylin and, Margret Weylin. So many break people up into categories between good and bad but is there truly people that are all good and all bad? Ever since I finished