Immigrant Letter Essay

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Kaizen Lui Mrs. Nicole Yuen Period 2 14 March 2024 Immigrant Letter Home Dear Father, I miss you and everyone at home greatly and hope you are doing well. It feels like it’s been an eternity since I’ve seen everybody. Please do not worry about me, as I am doing fine, but I wish I could get out of this wretched place. Working on the plantation is very laborious, but at least I can share stories with fellow Filipinos who also come from Manila. The food on the plantation is okay, but I wish I could have the adobo that mom cooks back home. Although Hawaii is nothing like home, it has a few similarities to the Philippines, like the climate and terrain. The temperature here stays in a tropical, humid climate year round and the mountains rise as high …show more content…

I'm sorry that I had to leave everyone back at home to work on the plantations, but life and earning money was difficult. The rich killed all wildlife, cutting off our food sources, and there were hardly any job opportunities I could take on. I hope that over the five years I have been here, those conditions have changed and you are doing better. However, I also came to Hawaii because there were rumors that I would be paid in gold and be able to return home even wealthier than when I came here. Besides being paid well, my contract also stated that I would have greater medical care than in the Philippines and I would have all my expenses such as housing, food, and water paid for. Over the five years working on the plantation my contract has ended, and now I can not pay back the plantation for my expenses nor afford the $300 cost of the ride back home. I was promised that Hawaii would be a wonderful paradise where I would be paid well and live a better life than the Philippines. Before I came to Hawaii, I also expected that I would be able to explore the wondrous land of …show more content…

We are confined to the fields of the plantation and are not able to go to the high mountains or see the never-ending ocean. As I have said before, working on the plantation is very exhausting. We have to work 10 hours six days a week with only one day of break. On our work days, we have to wake up at 5:00 am with only two breaks at 8:00 am and a 30-minute lunch break from 11:30 to 12:00. Despite working all these grueling hours, we only get paid under $15 a month minus all of our expenses. While we work, an evil luna or the supervisor watches over us, working tirelessly as he rides on horseback, not having a care in the world. The lunas ignored that if any of us got ill on the field, they would just scold us and tell us to get back to work. If we ever stopped working in the field, we would be fined and money would be taken off our paycheck. Our living conditions are pretty poor too, as I have to live in a cramped space with three other men. In our little house, we only have two rooms which are barely furnished. I tidy up around the house while my roommate Antonio makes us food, Andres does the laundry, and Alejandro keeps the morale

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