Similarities Between Coming To America And Rain In A Dry Land

Rain in a Dry Land is a documentary film directed by Anne Makepeace and Coming to America is a comedy film directed by John Landis. Both film describe the living experiences of Africans in American. Although the main character face similar difficulties in the first place, they have quite different experiences because the different social status of character in Africa.

Rain in a Dry Land portrayed the experience of refugee immigrants in Atlanta. Those two families had fled to escape the civil wars and immigrate to American. The only thing they care about is how to survive in the civil wars. Therefore, they are poor and lack of education. Even though they have some orientation classes in Kenya, they still spending hard time in American.

For children, they cannot understand English. Without access to translations, they fall far behind in school. For adults, they are struggling with finding a job in

American. They have pretty skillful farming skill, but it is kind of useless in American. Also, the six-months support plan is soon ended but the family still cannot afford their basic needs such as food and electricity. The film tries to reveal a problem that government do not offer longer enough support for those immigrant families from Africa. If those immigrants cannot live well in American, the relocation programs, for all their good intents, may not be the best way to deal with refugee crises.

On the other hand, the character in Coming to American is a prince in Zamunda.

He travels to American in order to find his wife. He is wealthy and well-educated, so that he does not have the barrier in communication and he can afford everything he wants. He rented the worst room in hotel but his servant refits it to the best room in hotel. Therefore, Akeem adapts the new circumstance voluntarily and quickly, whereas refugee immigrants struggle for a long time.

The character in both film encounter the problem of culture difference. The dressing style, daily habit and the way they talk are quite different with local residents. Refugee family choose to talk less to neighbors and keep a low profile in daily life. When classmates ask one of the children from Africa “Are you a prince of a country?” He chooses to be silent and refuse to answer it. However, Akeem acts totally different facing culture difference. He talks to his neighbor voluntarily and buys some cloth to looks like Americans. He also tries to watch the basketball game even though he cannot understand it at

all.

In Coming to American, the author portrays the African experiences in western lens. The conversation between old men in barber shop successfully portrayed the characteristic of most Americans. They are basically talk about everything in the barber shop for example, human rights and politics. It seems like they are the president of American. Also, when they saw the king come into the barber shop, they did not afraid of him as people in other countries. Moreover, one of them try to touch king’s cloth and talk to him as friends. Another portray in the film is when Akeem reach Queen at the first time, garbage is everywhere on the street and lots of homeless people nearby. They steal Akeem’s luggage as soon as he walks into the hotel. It forms a contrast between the rich prince and local residents in American.