two ways to belong in america

In our society nowadays, many people take our freedoms for granted. We live our lives as if we had it hard. They complain about all their work, high taxes, bills, corrupt government, and just how terrible people treat one another. Most American citizens believe we should be further ahead and better if you will. “How could we have gotten to this point?” many people ask. What these people don’t realize is how many have sacrificed themselves to help us to get here and make us a better country.

“Notes of an Alien Son: Immigration Paradoxes” by Andrei Codrescu is a short essay about his mother leaving Romania to come to America for a better life. Codrescu begins his essay by depicting the reasons why immigrants come to America. Most of them don’t expect things to be so difficult. In this case, they are not granted with the better life they expected to have when they came to America.

Steadily walking the streets of New York, yellow, blurring lights began to blind you, and all you can see is the people that pass you. You begin to take notice of the people that are a completely different race then you; wondering are all these people immigrants? Soon you come to a realization that our whole county is built on immigrants. In the book, “A Quilt of a Country” written by Anna Quindlen and “The Immigration Contribution” written by former president Kennedy you can start to see all the differences and similarities that both of the books have.

In the essay “Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee. The author talks about the problems immigrants face while they are in America. The author talks about her and her friend Mira’s struggles with Americas policies. This essay examines the audience of the text, the purpose for writing the story, and the subject of the book being read. By examining the audience, finding the purpose of the story, and researching and analyzing the author. The readers can have a deeper understanding of the book.

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

The term immigrant is defined as “a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence” (“Immigrant”). In her autobiography, Barefoot Heart, Elva Trevino Hart speaks of her immigrant ways and how she fought to become the Mexican-American writer she is today. She speaks about the working of land, the migrant camps, plus the existence she had to deal with in both the Mexican and American worlds. Hart tells the story of her family and the trials they went through along with her physical detachment and sense of alienation at home and in the American (Anglo) society. The loneliness and deprivation was the desire that drove Hart to defy the odds and acquire the unattainable sense of belonging into American

Through interviewing my roommate Linda Wang, I have gotten the opportunity of hearing a first-hand account of what it is like being a young immigrant living in the United States. At the age of eight, Linda, along with her father, mother, and aunt, emigrated to America. Linda’s family currently resides in Bayside, Queens and she is a student-athlete on the St. John’s women’s golf team. Linda was kind enough to share her immigration story with me so that I may use it as a manifestation of what life as an immigrant, and the immigration process itself, entails.

    Many immigrant and minority narratives concentrate their efforts on the positive side of the American dream. These particular stories narrate a person's struggle and rise through the ranks of the Am6rican hierarchy focusing on the opportunities that seem to abound in this country. While these stories are well and good. they do seem to soft peddle the flip side of this country's attitude toward the immigrant and minority. America is a land of milk and honey and opportunity, but unfortunately most new officiates or unwilling participants in the American culture face an American nightmare that leaves its effects on the individuals, families and cultures

In The Book of Unknown Americans the Author, Cristina Henriquez, gives us a real life insight on a family’s story about coming to America and adjusting to the American way of life. Henriquez put the words “It’s not paradise, but at least here I can be at peace” (Henriquez 47) in the mouth of Benny Quinto, an immigrant from Nicaragua. Benny, like many others in the story, came to America to find an “escape” from their native countries. America is sought after by many immigrants for better living conditions, a better life for their families, and like we see in this book, medical treatment. America is seen by immigrants as a place of freedom, promises and opportunities but, that isn’t necessarily true.

Immigration has been a hot topic in every election and debate since the country was founded. Throughout the years the notion that one could come to the United States and have the opportunity to build a better life has been lost. The image of the American dream no longer fits the reality that due to our selfishness and our biased opinions of people from other cultures, we do not hold true to the country’s world renowned reputation of being a place where anyone can come build a better life and be accepted into our “melting pot”. Right off the bat Gloria offered many new insights that I had never

Throughout the history, immigration and the United States are inextricably linked. The United States has promulgated many immigration legislations in the past either to restrict or support the immigration. Immigration is still going on and it is a debatable issue even today. In the interview, Chang-rae Lee says, “I’m interested in people who find themselves in places, either of their choosing or not, and who are forced to decide how best to live there. That feeling of both citizenship and exile, of always being an expatriate-with all the attendant problems and complications and delight”(Garner 2). Chang-rae Lee exposes the inner and outer conflicts the immigrants go through in the United States with

Two hundred forty-one years. In that small amount of time America forged its self into a vast landscape of different cultures. A combination of numerous cultures mongrelized together to form “We the people” in America today. Due to all the mixing in the pot, an uncertainty about the countries identity arose. For all the beauty that the melting pot brought, it also created a darker side, as aspects of each cultures fought for superiority in the nation. This fight emerges throughout American history and as a new era of deporis rises, the issues are becoming more relevant. In American Dreamer by Bharati Mukherjee, she shares her own experiences as an immigrant and the fight she partook in to have her own American identity seen. Mukherjee’s fight mirrors hundreds of naturalized American citizens who are trying to realize their identity, however it also shines light on native-born Americas struggling as well. The need for a unified American identity produces a nationwide identity crisis.

Two Ways to Belong in America by Bharati Mukherjee is a personal essay about two immigrant sisters named Bharati and Mira, moving to the United States to work for around 35 years. Despite differences in personalities and perspectives, the two sisters love each other and get along quite well. Both share the same birthplace and culture background, however one admires wearing jeans, the other clings onto her sari. As it is mentioned in the essay in paragraph 4 and 6, Mira decided to stay true to here culture and marry an Indian student, and Bharati stepped further from traditions and married an American, “Mira married an Indian student in 1962” and “I married a fellow student, an

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.

“In 2013, 13 percent of the U.S. population was foreign-born. Current projections suggest that by 2065, nearly one in five people in the United States will have been born outside the country” (Hing 25).3 Immigration has been an integral part of the United States since its colonial days. Over a million legal and illegal immigrants take up residence in the United States each year. With the country struggling to support the huge intake of new comers, life in America has been suffering tremendously. The excessive stress put upon the welfare system, overuse of the family reunification laws, and the exploitation of employment based immigration are reasons for immigration reform. The American Government is trying to solve the deep rooted problems of immigration including the 1965 law, Chain immigration, and Latino immigration.