In the book, “Out of this Furnace” by Thomas bell, three generations of an originally Hungarian family portray the social and economic difficulties of families that migrated to the US in the 1900’s. George Kracha exemplifies the typical first immigrant generation because he doesn’t ever truly assimilate into American society. Kracha is never involved in politics nor attempts to become a fluent English speaker. He just goes to work and does nothing to change the system he lives in. In the second generation the offspring of the migrating parents are educated and are more politically involved. For the second generation, Mike, Kracha’s son-in-law, becomes Americanized through the education he receives which allows him to understand the importance …show more content…
The journey from Hungary to New York must have been terrifying as he was leaving behind his wife, mother and sister. Consequently, Kracha traveled alone, he did not bring a lot of money with him and he had to deal with foreign languages. Furthermore, he was afraid of being murdered, robbed, or kidnapped. While on the way to New York Kracha spent if not all, most of the money he had packed with him. Moreover, he walked out off the ship with only fifty cents, which was not enough for the ferry and the train that would take him to Pennsylvania where he planned to meet with his brother. As a result, he had an even more complicated trip to Pennsylvania because he chose to walk to his …show more content…
When she migrates to the US the relationship between her and her husband Kracha is not the same as Kracha does not see her the same way he even insults her all the time. She spends most of her days at home cooking and taking care of the kids. She had to deal with Kracha who would always come home tired and in a bad mood. Elena would also have to accommodate her waking time to her husband’s so she could cook him breakfast. She also had to make sure he ate lunch and dinner and she had to feed the rest of her children. Franka argues, “your poor wife works herself to the bone making a home for you, washing your dirty drawers, bearing your children…” (Bell 88). Francka knows and understand the workload of Elena as she hyperbolizes the quantity of work that is wearing out Elena. Similarly, Franka had to experience about the same workload as Elena “‘Why not? All he does is eat and sleep.’ Francka poked the fire in the stove. ‘And drink’” (Bell 17). Francka is referring to her husband who also works a lot and only uses her for domestic purposes. Francka is always being brought up in the background as she is cooking or running other house
Differences present between immigrant and non-immigrant families in terms of opportunity, social inclusion and cultural acceptance is a prominent issue in the world today. In the novel, Brother, David Chariandy shows how these inconsistencies affect the opportunities present for second-generation migrants. Francis, Michael and Aisha are all children of migrants residing in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough or “Scar-Bro” as Michael refers to it (Chariandy). This suburb is home to immigrants of colour struggling to raise families on minimum wage jobs and the institutional racism present. This essay will first examine how the opportunity of second generation migrants is affected due to the preconceived idea of what opportunity is from the first
Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell was a captivating tale that follows three generations of Slovakian immigrants who venture to America in search of a better life within a new world full of great opportunity. The story allows the reader to follow along with the trials and tribulations of George Kracha’s family and the pursuit of the American dream during a time of turmoil in our history.
According to Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, between 1880 and about World War I, the vast majority of Eastern European Jews and Southern Italians came to the United States populating neighborhoods in New York and the Lower East Side is the best example. One thing, which was common to the immigrant experience is that, all immigrants come to the United States as the “land of opportunity”. They come to America with different types of expectations that are conditioned by their origins and families. But every immigrant comes to America wanting to make himself/herself into a person, to be an individual and to become somebody. In this case, the author showed in Bread Givers, Sarah’s desire to make herself into something and bring something unique to America, which only she can bring. It is an effort to understand the immigrants, particularly Jewish immigrants, from a woman’s point of view. The book shows that it was a challenge for Jewish immigrant children, particularly females, on the account of the intensity of their family’s connections and obligations that was so critical for the immigrant communities. This was true for the immigrants who came to settle in the neighborhoods like the one Sarah and her family settled in.
Many Guatemalan immigrants who arrived north to the United States, like Antonio, were fleeing from the danger and persecution of the Guatemalan civil war. Although they hoped to rebuild their lives and possibly better them. The reality was that they would continue to face hardships such as poverty, unequal rights, and discrimination. For example take this excerpt from one of our course readings, “The Reagan and Bush admissions, obsessed with stopping Communism in the region, refused to assist the thousands streaming across the Mexican border to escape that terror” (pg. 131). Even though a very large majority of Guatemalan immigrants that came to the U.S. were a result of the civil war that was caused by the by the United States, our government refused to assist. Antonio is forced out on the street because he does not make enough money as a dish washer to pay his rent. Although this occurs in the novel, it was a harsh reality for many Central American immigrants. With the refusal of assistance from the government, Guatemalan immigrants had to take jobs in coffee shops, dishwashers, field workers, and manual laborers. For example,“Good neighborhoods were defined as white, and whiteness was defined as good, stable, employed, and
Immigrants come to America, the revered City upon a Hill, with wide eyes and high hopes, eager to have their every dream and wild reverie fulfilled. Rarely, if ever, is this actually the case. A select few do achieve the stereotypical ‘rags to riches’ transformation – thus perpetuating the myth. The Garcia family from Julia Alvarez’s book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, fall prey to this fairytale. They start off the tale well enough: the girls are treated like royalty, princesses of their Island home, but remained locked in their tower, also known as the walls of their family compound. The family is forced to flee their Dominican Republic paradise – which they affectionately refer to as simply, the Island – trading it instead for the cold, mean streets of American suburbs. After a brief acclimation period, during which the girls realize how much freedom is now available to them, they enthusiastically try to shed their Island roots and become true “American girls.” They throw themselves into the American lifestyle, but there is one slight snag in their plan: they, as a group, are unable to forget their Island heritage and upbringing, despite how hard they try to do so. The story of the Garcia girls is not a fairytale – not of the Disney variety anyway; it is the story of immigrants who do not make the miraculous transition from rags to riches, but from stifling social conventions to unabridged freedom too quickly, leaving them with nothing but confusion and unresolved questions of identity.
Out of This Furnace tells a impressive story of a multigenerational family of Slovakian immigrants who comes to the United States in search of a better life in the New World. The patriarch of the Slovak family was Djuro Kracha, who arrived in the New World in the mid-1880s from the "old country." The story tells of his voyage, his work on the railroad to earn enough money to afford the walk to the steel mills of Pennsylvania, his rejection by the larger mainstream community as a "hunkey," and the lives of his daughter and grandson. As the members of this family become more generally acculturated and even Americanized, they come to resent the cruel treatment and the discrimination they suffer.
The book Out of this Furnace written by Thomas Bell is about a Slovak family immigration to America. Immigrating to America for the Slovak family brought trials and problems. The work that was available for the George, Mike and Johnny is hard and requires long hours of work, for very little pay. The family came hoping to get a better life. But in the end the American dream became very hard for them to reach. Jobs were hard to find and working in the mill required movement from place to place, finding a home for the family was difficult and making sure that family was happy and taken care wasn’t easy. Reaching the American dream was difficult for the immigrants, especially for the Slovak family.
For thousands of years people have left their home country in search of a land of milk and honey. Immigrants today still equate the country they are immigrating to with the Promised Land or the land of milk and honey. While many times this Promised Land dream comes true, other times the reality is much different than the dream. Immigration is not always a perfect journey. There are many reasons why families immigrate and there are perception differences about immigration and the New World that create difficulties and often separate generations in the immigrating family. Anzia Yezierska creates an immigration story based on a Jewish family that is less than ideal. Yezierska’s text is a powerful example of the turmoil that is created in the family as a result of the conflict between the Old World and the New World.
A well-discussed debate in today’s economy is the issues concerning immigrants and their yearning desire to become American citizens. As displayed in The Jungle, a rather perturbing novel about the trials and ruthless temptations early America presents to a Lithuanian family, adjusting to a new surroundings and a new way of life is quite difficult. To make matters worse, language barriers and lack of domestic knowledge only seem to entice starvation and poverty among newly acquired citizens, who simply wish to change their social and economic lives to better themselves and their families. Such is the case of Jurgis Rudkus and his extended family, consisting of cousins, in-laws, and their multitude of children. Natives to the country of Lithuania, Jurgis and his family decide that, after Jurgis and his love, Ona, marry, they will move to Chicago to find work in order to support their family.
... lived in New York tenements. In Riis’s book, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, he uses prolific prose coupled with emotionally powerful illustrations that paint a vivid picture of immigrant families living in tenements in the late 1800s. Throughout Riss’s book, exposes how immigrant children were forced to work in factories and sweatshops. As a result, Riss successfully achieves his goal of educating the middle class regarding the challenges that urban immigrants faced. Lastly, although Riss tact regarding racial epithets of the immigrants he wrote on and photographed are offensive, the importance of Riss’s photographs outweighs the racial insults because his pictures lie not only in their power to enlighten but also to move his readers regarding how immigrant families were forced into making their children work.
Migration in the Early 20th century to America was scary in many ways; mothers feared losing their children to American Institutes. Some mothers felt American education made children, “persons of leisure” (Ewen, 1985). Mother’s felt that schools set their children up to loses; they felt their daughters were needed at home to help with hous...
Sheetz 1 Sarah Sheetz Ms. Rosenberger English 4 October 17, 2016 Faulkner’s Self Help Book In “Barn Burning,” Faulkner illustrates a boy’s coming to age story, including his struggle in choosing whether to stand by in the midst of his father’s destructive cycle of spiteful burning or stand up for his own belief in civic duty. While most readers do not relate to having a father that habitually burns others’ belongings in a strange power scheme, readers relate to the struggle between blood ties and their own values. Taking the theme even broader, readers relate to any struggle with making a decision. Through imagery, reoccurring motifs, and diction, Faulkner creates an intense pressure which enhances readers understanding of Sarty, his struggle,
Because my family sacrificed everything and came to America, I was able to be married and have children relatively easily. My husband has never had to leave us for a long period of time, or move us across the country. We were born into America, living a life full of luxuries that we do not even realize are luxuries, all because my ancestors moved here long ago. My children do not have to worry about what the next day holds, or whether they will be able to eat at dinner time. They get to go to college at a young age without any terrible sacrifices. My oldest daughter will have her associate’s degree right out of high school, and will become a doctor, something my ancestors never had the chance to do. It is crazy to think that my ancestor’s barley got the opportunity to go to school, and yet my youngest daughter is the youngest person to attend college here in Ashland. I am the first one in my family line to go to college, and am blessed with the opportunity to choose my occupation, something my ancestors didn’t get to do. This is the same for Junot, who was able to choose his own occupation here in America. Unfortunately Junot’s mother “never did become a nurse…Immigration got in the way of that horizon—once in the United States, my mother never could master English, no matter how hard she tried, and my God, did she try.”(Diaz 1). But because she wanted so much more for her son, she strongly encouraged
Mary went from not even attending school in Russia, to star pupil in America, illustrating the promise that America had to offer immigrants. American afforded Mary with opportunities that were impossible in her home country of Russia. Even though Frieda also lived in America, her circumstances represent the realities of the Old World. For instance, Frieda’s only way of learning about American history was through Mary, as she was not afforded time to read while working. By not attending school, Frieda did not only became stuck in the Old World mentality in terms of education but also in terms of marriage. Her father “had put Frieda to work out of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when she had an offer of marriage, but my father would not stand in the way of what he considered her welfare” (Antin, 218). Frieda was not given the opportunity to marry for love, as was the American way, but was married out of necessity for her welfare, reminiscent of the Old World mentality. Public education provided Mary with the opportunity to marry not because she had to in order to survive, but because she wanted to. The stark contrast between the lives of Frieda, representing life in the
...eam to “fit in” to American society. The dream is vividly depicted by Dreiser in Mr. Gerhardt. William drives Jennie out because he thinks that she is acting immorally not only from religious point of view, but according to social codes as well. The case is that during the end of the nineteenth century immigrant offsprings were criticized more abruptly than American children for their behavior. Discrimination was inevitable and most of the members of immigrant communities realized that if there was any young man or girl who misbehaves, it would harm the reputation of others too. That’s why they did their best in order to adjust to the American way of life. The only way of reaching this goal was to bring the next generation up better that Americans. This is one of the reasons that make Mr. Gerhardt become furious when he gets the news of Jennie’s condition.