The novel, Strength in What Remains, by author Tracy Kidder, is an inspiring story of a young man’s refugee escape from the civil war and genocide of his homeland in Burundi, Africa. At the age of twenty-four, the main character, Deogratias, Deo for short, is able to escape his war-torn and burning home and make his way to New York City in 1994. His recovery is a process of time as he is tormented by horrific nightmares of the gruesome events he encountered. Along his journey, he meets kind hearted strangers who are full of good will who help him accomplish his dream of being in the medical field. This story is a propelling recollection of Deo’s enduring spirit to overcome the nightmares that haunted him from his past in order to fill his highest aspirations of being a healer.
Deo was displaced in Burundi, yet nowhere was safe for him to go. He must overcome many obstacles in order to even make his long journey to America. He left is home and family in utter devastation in order to seek a new life for himself. He spoke French and struggled from the moment he set foot on the plane. He was an intelligent man who was top in his class in medical school in his homeland, but none of that would help him now. He was as good as illiterate. He struggled to find signs that he could understand. Once in New York, he spent most of his money on books. He bought an English dictionary in order to help him understand the language. He spent a lot of his time in bookstores and libraries, if only to look at the pictures. Kidder writes, “The stores he liked the best had chairs where he could sit and look at books he hoped one day to read”. The language barrier was a tremendous barrier he had to overcome. Deo continued his learning o...
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...k child. I asked the mother why she came to work with a child that sick. And she said to me, 'I've already lost three children, and I know this one is next, whether I stay at home or come to work here. So it's better for me to join others and make my contribution, which hopefully will help to save someone else's child, who will be sick but alive when you build your clinic.' With the help of the community, He does not let anything stop him from opening the clinic.
Strength in What Remains is a story of redemption and the power to overcome. In the books closing, Deo says, “Let’s work on the clinic. Let’s put this tragedy behind us, because remembering is not going to benefit anyone”. Deo’s search for meaning in life is found within himself as he finds the strength to endure every harsh obstacle that comes his way with a heart of forgiveness, against all odds.
Jimmy Baca’s story “Coming into Language” describes his emotional childhood and what he went through while in prison. At seventeen Baca still didn’t know how to read or write. Throughout the story, he shares his struggle with language and how prison eventually brought himself to learn how to read and write. Jimmy Baca then uses examples in his story explaining how he admired language and used it to free himself from the cruel world he grew up in.
As a young child, Rodriguez finds comfort and safety in his noisy home full of Spanish sounds. Spanish, is his family's' intimate language that comforts Rodriguez by surrounding him in a web built by the family love and security which is conveyed using the Spanish language. "I recognize you as someone close, like no one outside. You belong with us, in the family, Ricardo.? When the nuns came to the Rodriquez?s house one Saturday morning, the nuns informed the parents that it would be best if they spoke English. Torn with a new since of confusion, his home is turned upside down. His sacred family language, now banished from the home, transforms his web into isolation from his parents. "There was a new silence in the home.? Rodriguez is resentful that it is quiet at the dinner table, or that he can't communicate with his parents about his day as clearly as before. He is heartbroken when he overhears his mother and father speaking Spanish together but suddenly stop when they see Rodriguez. Thi...
Throughout the life of an individual most people would agree that dealing with tough conflict is an important part in growing as a person. In “The Cellist of Sarajevo” all the characters experience a brutal war that makes each of them struggle albeit in different ways. Each of them have their own anxieties and rage that eventually makes them grow as characters at the end of the book. Steven Galloway’s novel “The Cellist of Sarajevo” exemplifies that when an individual goes through a difficult circumstance they will often struggle because of the anger and fear they have manifested over time. The conflict that the individual faces will force them to reinforce and strengthen their identity in order to survive.
In Aria,” from Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, Richard Rodriguez shares his autobiography of when he first entered his classroom at catholic school. He writes of his transition through emotions of fear, insecurity, and self-doubt as he transitions from the privacy of his home to the public world. Richard develops an understanding that his that private language that is used in his home is different from the language that is publicly acceptable in school. His school teachers pushed his americanalization which led him to discover his identity, since he indeed was an American but grew up in a Spanish speaking home. Through this journey of journey of assimilation he discovers that learning this new language brought him a sense of comfortability and acceptance. Richard Rodriguez heavily relates to the Crevecoeurian immigrant because he was willing to learn a new language, leave his culture behind, and embrace his American identity.
The author’s diction heightens the confusion and difficulties the English language evokes, as her simple method of communication progressively becomes more complicated. Words are “sifting” around solely as “vocabulary words” it becomes difficult for her to connect and understand this “closed” language. The author learned Spanish during her childhood through past memories and experiences which helped her form a closer knit bond to the language as a whole; however, English does not root any deep connections for her causing her to doubt the importance of words. The negative connotation when she refers to vocabulary words and closed is due to the fact that she is frustrated with her inability to communicate exactly what she perceives as they are not connected to experiences. Similarly, the language seems “frail” and essentially “bottled up” as she is unable to express her thoughts in a manner other than exclusive “translations”. Unlike Spanish, English seems to have a complicated and confusing aspect tied to it where the author is feels trapped because she cannot convey her emotions or relate to it culturally. The repetitions of these words that have a negative connotation draw out the significance behind communication and the true value of connecting to a culture. Overall, the dictio...
For more than 300 years, immigrants from every corner of the globe have settled in America, creating the most diverse and heterogeneous nation on Earth. Though immigrants have given much to the country, their process of changing from their homeland to the new land has never been easy. To immigrate does not only mean to come and live in a country after leaving your own country, but it also means to deal with many new and unfamiliar situations, social backgrounds, cultures, and mainly with the acquisition and master of a new language. This often causes mixed emotions, frustration, awkward feelings, and other conflicts. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, the author describes the social, cultural and linguistic difficulties encountered in America as he attempts to assimilate to the American culture. Richard Rodriguez by committing himself to speaking English, he lost his cultural ties, family background and ethnic heritage.
When they first arrived to the United States their only hopes were that they would have a better life and that there were better special education programs for Maribel to attend at Evers. Alma imagined that the buildings would look a lot nicer than they really were. The family was surprised that they could take things from the street that someone threw out of their house, but were in working condition. When they arrived they didn’t think that you would actually have to learn English to be able to communicate, but after going to stores and interacting with people they learned that they need to learn English if they want to live in America. They hoped that you could be able to afford anything in America by working, but based off of the money Arturo was making they learned that you can’t buy everyth...
In the end, the narrator’s only describable tendency is of that of an antihero. Chastising society for both the condition of the children and forcing this adoption onto the staff of this hospital. Yet through this perpetual motion, he perseveres forward.
Dave Pelzer has shown admirable character for surviving a horrendous childhood and also for becoming a man that strives to please his family and works for the betterment of society. His clear and concise writing style in this novel provides us with a child’s viewpoint, which makes the book more emotional then it possibly could be. With the use of metaphors Dave Pelzer establishes the claim that the human spirit has the capability to fight back regardless of the condition that it is in. This story should be a source of inspiration and motivation for those who believe that all hope is lost.
English is an invisible gate. Immigrants are the outsiders. And native speakers are the gatekeepers. Whether the gate is wide open to welcome the broken English speakers depends on their perceptions. Sadly, most of the times, the gate is shut tight, like the case of Tan’s mother as she discusses in her essay, "the mother tongue." People treat her mother with attitudes because of her improper English before they get to know her. Tan sympathizes for her mother as well as other immigrants. Tan, once embarrassed by her mother, now begins her writing journal through a brand-new kaleidoscope. She sees the beauty behind the "broken" English, even though it is different. Tan combines repetition, cause and effect, and exemplification to emphasize her belief that there are more than one proper way (proper English) to communicate with each other. Tan hopes her audience to understand that the power of language- “the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth”- purposes to connect societies, cultures, and individuals, rather than to rank our intelligence.
Tan’s essay does more than just illuminate the trouble with language variations; her essay features a story of perseverance, a story of making a “problem” harmonize into a “normal” life. Almost like a how-to, Tan’s essay describes an obstacle and what it takes to go above and beyond. Mirroring Tan, I have been able to assimilate “the [world] that helped shape the way I saw things” and the world that I had to conform to (Tan 129). Life is a struggle, but what makes it worth it is the climb, not what is on the other side.
In the early 1900's a newly arrived immigrant worker faced numerous challenges that had to be overcome. Often times literally arriving with the clothes on their back and a few meager dollars, it was crucial for these individuals to find work and lodging as soon as possible. The first challenge faced by this individual was the language. Not speaking English places this person at a severe disadvantage when trying to hold even a simple conversation.
As I walked down the corridor I noticed a man lying in a hospital bed with only a television, two dressers, and a single window looking out at nothing cluttering his room. Depression overwhelmed me as I stared at the man laying on his bed, wearing a hospital gown stained by failed attempts to feed himself and watching a television that was not on. The fragments of an existence of a life once active and full of conviction and youth, now laid immovable in a state of unconsciousness. He was unaffected by my presence and remained in his stupor, despondently watching the blank screen. The solitude I felt by merely observing the occupants of the home forced me to recognize the mentality of our culture, out with the old and in with the new.
...rough language after being unable to become multilingual due to apartheid, and de Houwer mentions how children become bilingual mainly because their environment is bilingual. For Noah, his world forced him to be monolingual despite being raised by multilingual parents. The credibility of this source is questioned since a comedian’s job is to make the audience laugh, not necessarily to tell the truth. It would help if these stories came from a biographical source to see if they are factual. The stories may be suspicious but the ideas presented in his performance are reasonable and not farfetched. More than anything, this primary source gives me a more personal account of the impact of language. I intend to use this source with de Houwer’s to show how raising a bilingual child is much easier and effective than letting one search for his or her identity as a grown man.
The novel Tsotsi, by Athol Fugard, is a story of redemption and reconciliation, facing the past, and confronts the core elements of human nature. The character going through this journey, who the novel is named after, is a young man who is part of the lowest level of society in a poor shanty town in South Africa. Tsotsi is a thug, someone who kills for money and suffers no remorse. But he starts changing when circumstance finds him in possession of a baby, which acts as a catalyst in his life. A chain of events leads him to regain memories of his childhood and discover why he is the way he is. The novel sets parameters of being “human” and brings these to the consideration of the reader. The reader’s limits of redemption are challenged as Tsotsi comes from a life lacking what the novel suggests are base human emotions.