The short story “Where Worlds Collide” by Pico Iyer is about immigrants seeing America for the first time. Incidentally they look at America in the eyes of their culture and as result they felt out of place. They see a strange order such as “Koreans piling into the Taeguk Airport Shuttle and the Seoul Shuttle, which will take them to Koreatown without ever feeling they left home”. Their observation points out how people from Korea choose the closest thing to home, this is their culture, their comfort zone. To people who are not from America the rules are abnormal because they are different from their own.
The Europeans who claimed what was to become America chose to integrate the land's present inhabitants and future immigrants in order to become the dominating race and, consequently, made other cultures feel inferior to their own. The Angel family, Mexican-Indian immigrants and the subject of Arturo Islas' Migrant Souls, becomes victim to the Americans' forceful demands for conformity. While Sancho, the father, never complains about assimilation, yet never becomes fully "assimilated," his wife, Eduviges, strives to be a part of the American culture. These conflicting reactions and the existing prejudice in the community leave their daughter, Josie, uncertain of her true identity.
There has been many discussions about how people try to fit in society, whether it is for music, interests in subjects, or even trying to fit in a specific culture. Groups and individuals seems to have a distinction among each other when it comes down to fitting in society and how they differ and have tensions among each other to conform to social norms. In “Making Conversation” and “The Primacy of Practice” by Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses how all cultures have similarities and differences but sometimes those differences are so different that they can not connect to another nation. Manuel Munoz in “Leave Your Name at the Border” argues how immigrants in a city are forced to act more societal and how it typically affects the diversity in
-Many Korean immigrants came to America because they wanted to give their children a better future and because of the American Dream. They worked hard to achieve that dream; working hard everyday, and saving up every penny (Sa-I-Gu: From Korean Women's Perspectives, 1993). As immigrants, they were only able to get very low paying jobs and made very little. The only property they could afford to buy was in South Central Los Angeles. The property there was cheap because many people/companies didn't want to run a business there because it was in such a bad neighborhood (Sa-I-Gu: From Korean Women's Perspectives, 1993). The Korean immigrants knew how to run a successful business. They worked long and hard hours, and had family members work instead of employing people from the neighborhood. This way, they were able to cut labor costs and were able to survive and...
Immigration has existed around the world for centuries, decades, and included hundreds of cultures. Tired of poverty, a lack of opportunities, unequal treatment, political corruption, and lacking any choice, many decided to emigrate from their country of birth to seek new opportunities and a new and better life in another country, to settle a future for their families, to work hard and earn a place in life. As the nation of the opportunities, land of the dreams, and because of its foundation of a better, more equal world for all, the United States of America has been a point of hope for many of those people. A lot of nationals around the world have ended their research for a place to call home in the United States of America. By analyzing primary sources and the secondary sources to back up the information, one could find out about what Chinese, Italians, Swedish, and Vietnamese immigrants have experienced in the United States in different time periods from 1865 to 1990.
Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: a History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: Perennial, 2002. Print.
Immigration, the act of coming to live permanently in a foreign country. Throughout the United States’ history, immigrants faced various challenges and especially after 1880. Most immigrants moved to achieve the American dream of having a better life and pursuing their dreams. But, this experience as they moved, was different for every immigrant. Some lives improved while others did not. Immigrants such as Catholics, Italians, and the Chinese were not welcomed into America in the late 19th century and early 20th century because of their differences in beliefs and cultures.
I have to introduce you to three individuals, not random individuals, but siblings - two brothers and a sister. They may seem just like any other people, but they have a secret that isn’t easily realized unless you know them. They belong here in the sense that they were born here, but their hearts belong to another land. They are the children of immigrants; the first generation to be born in America. It is a unique experience that to others may seem odd or exotic, but for these three is just as normal as learning to ride a bike.
In Marcelo M. Suarez- Orozco and Carola Suarez- Orozco’s article “How Immigrants became “other” Marcelo and Carola reference the hardships and struggles of undocumented immigrants while at the same time argue that no human being should be discriminated as an immigrant. There are millions of undocumented people that risk their lives by coming to the United States all to try and make a better life for themselves. These immigrants are categorized and thought upon as terrorist, rapists, and overall a threat to Americans. When in reality they are just as hard working as American citizens. This article presents different cases in which immigrants have struggled to try and improve their life in America. It overall reflects on the things that immigrants go through. Immigrants come to the United States with a purpose and that is to escape poverty. It’s not simply crossing the border and suddenly having a great life. These people lose their families and go years without seeing them all to try and provide for them. They risk getting caught and not surviving trying to make it to the other side. Those that make it often don’t know where to go as they are unfamiliar. They all struggle and every story is different, but to them it’s worth the risk. To work the miserable jobs that Americans won’t. “I did not come to steal from anyone. I put my all in the jobs I take. And I don’t see any of the Americans wanting to do this work” (668). These
“Chi la dura la vince.” This soft-spoken Italian proverb sums up the series of events that Italian immigrants endured on their journey in America. Between 1880 and 1920, more than four million Italian-Americans immigrated to the United States of America in hopes of temporarily escaping Southern Italy’s impoverished and overpopulated society. Once in America, these new Italian-American citizens started ‘Little Italys’ or ethnic enclaves of Italians. Some Little Italies were even large enough to support a full economic structure of their own, providing a plethora of job opportunities. These ‘small’ Italian communities shielded themselves from general stereotypes and provided a sense of belonging which helped Italians establish their roots. America’s attitude toward these new Italian-American citizens can be summed up in part by Congressman James McClintic, a Democrat Oklahoman: "I say the class of immigrants [Italians] coming to the shores of the United States at this time are not the kind of people we want as citizens in this country." Inplace of responding by aggressive human nature, America’s new Italian citizens viewed this as an opportunity to enrich family and community bonds. As for Italian traditions, they struggled to be accustomed between the two Italian generations as the already ‘Americanized’ Italian children clashed with their parents, which resulted in altered traditions. One major example is Italian-American food which chain restaurants have come to paint as a type of restaurant that specializes in spaghetti with meatballs, pizza, and has red checked tablecloths.
A sudden change in one’s surroundings can result in culture shock. Culture shock refers to the anxiety and surprise a person feels when he or she is discontented with an unfamiliar setting. The majority of practices or customs are different from what a person is used to. One may experience withdrawal, homesickness, or a desire for old friends. For example, when a person goes to live in a different place with unfamiliar surroundings, they may experience culture shock. Sometimes it is the result of losing their identity. In the article “The Phases of Culture Shock”, Pamela J. Brink and Judith Saunders describe four phases of culture shock. They are: Honeymoon Phase, Disenchantment Phase, Beginning Resolution Phase, and Effective Function Phase. These phases denote some of the stages that exemplify culture shock. The four phases are illustrated in the articles “New Immigrants: Portraits in Passage” by Thomas Bentz, “Immigrant America: A Portrait” by Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut, “When I Was Puerto Rican” by Esmeralda Santiago, “Today’s Immigrants, Their Stories” by Thomas Kessner and Betty Boyd Caroli, and lastly, “The New Americans: Immigrant Life in Southern California” by Ulli Steltzer, and are about the experiences of some immigrants. This essay will examine the four phases of culture shock and classify the experiences of these immigrants by the different phases of culture shock identified.
With the rapid economic development, more and more people try to immigrate to America and trying to learn English. Some parents would like their children just speaking English. However, there are some parents tend to keep their native language and teach to their children, in order to keep their culture alive. And in my opinion, parents should keep their old language alive.
In the short story “The Danish Way of Life”, author Jamie Gullen, who is a native of New York City spent several months in Copenhagen. She went expecting Copenhagen to be similar culturally to the United States only to find she had a lot to learn about herself and about this new country. In another short story called “Where Are You From?” the author Patricia Park, also a native of New York City, but the daughter of Korean immigrants, also traveled to another country, Korea. She went expecting to find Korea to be the way her parents had described it. The “motherland” as she explained, was a family myth. Although both of these authors grew up in the same city, of the same country, they had two different experiences when
Kim, Illsoo. New Urban Immigrants: The Korean Community in New York. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Helena Maria Viramontes grew up in Los Angeles where relatives used to stay and live with her family when making the transition from Mexico to the United States. This is where she got her first taste of the lives of immigrants in this country within the urban barrios. Viramontes's writing reflects this theme along with expressing her political opinions on the treatments of immigrants, especially Chicanos and Latinos. In her short story "The Cariboo Café," Viramontes brings these ideas to life through three sections narrated by different individuals tied into the story.
The characters are surprised to see no armed soldiers at the airport hinting towards where they used to live; the author conveys the disorientation they felt showing that they were experiencing culture shock. "There are no military planes on the tarmac here, the newcomers notice, no khaki soldiers in fatigues, no instructions not to take photographs, as at home..." (51). Pico Iyer projects the confusion the characters feel by the multi-culturalism they see around them. "They see Koreans piling into the Taeguk Airport Shuttle and the Seoul Shuttle, which will take them to Koreatown without their ever feeling they've left home; they see newcomers from the Middle East disappearing under the Arabic script of the Sahara shuttle. They see fast-talking, finger-snapping, palm slapping jive artists..." (51). Pico Iyer shows cultural assimilation in America by showing how Americans adopt the culture of other groups. The characters don’t see this in the country they originally come from and are shocked that the culture minority isn't oppressed like it is in their