Life is like a game of blackjack where we unknowingly are dealt good or bad cards. This unpredictability makes it difficult to gamble decisions. Unfortunately many factors can lead to the bad card where in both the game and life, people are trying to prevent us from achieving the goal. There are two choices to change the outcome however, we may either give up (fold) or we may take a chance (call). The beauty of taking the risk is that if lucky, life gives you that much-needed card. When dealt that winning card, a person is immediately uplifted. That one good hand drives a person to outweigh the pros from the cons and continue to strive for the winning pot or in this case, the goal in life. Enrique in Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” is dealt both the good and bad cards in life, as he undergoes a battle of being pushed internally to continue while also being pulled externally to quit, thus leading him to unearth himself as a worthy human being while on the journey to the U.S; sadly however, his arrival in the U.S refutes what he clearly envisioned for himself. The push-and-pull factors in Enrique’s yearn for the U.S not only allows him to rediscover himself as an individual in a world of uncertainty, it also eliminates his constant fear of failing as a promising human being; in addition exhibits the undying hope of a desperate man found in hopeful migrants. In Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” his mother’s trip streamed “emptiness” into the heart of a once comfortable child and left him to “struggle” to hold memories they shared. Enrique’s life after Lourdes’ departure triggered the traumatizing demise of his identity. He threw this broken identity away while facing many obstacles, nevertheless each endea... ... middle of paper ... ...rest became a nightmare. Enrique’s time apart from his mother made them more like “strangers” than family. Filled with anger stemming from the years apart from one another, he refused to obey his mother’s wishes to live healthier. While lost in family chaos, he turned back to his addiction of drugs crashing his dream of a perfect family dynamic. Though his dream became a nightmare, he was able to achieve it through one core trait where his inner strength help drive him to not give up his dream of seeing his mother. This signifies that if a person is willing to work hard to achieve their dream through diligence, it can be met. Though the outcome may not be what one hoped for, being able to say you accomplished something is soul-pleasing. His success in making it to the U.S. regardless of many downfalls satisfies one missing piece in his broken puzzle of a life.
In a story of identity and empowerment, Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “Borderbus” revolves around two Honduran women grappling with their fate regarding a detention center in the United States after crawling up the spine of Mexico from Honduras. While one grapples with their survival, fixated on the notion that their identities are the ultimate determinant for their future, the other remains fixated on maintaining their humanity by insisting instead of coming from nothingness they are everything. Herrera’s poem consists entirely of the dialogue between the two women, utilizing diction and imagery to emphasize one’s sense of isolation and empowerment in the face of adversity and what it takes to survive in America.
Martinez’s story is not so much one that pieces together the events of the crash, nor the lives of the three youths, but it is an immigrant’s tale, discovered through the crossings of the various Chavez family members and profiles of Cheranos in Mexico.
In both the movie, La Misma Luna, and the newspaper series, Enrique’s Journey, migrants are faced with many issues. The most deadly and scarring issues all relate back to bandits, judicial police, and la migra or Mexican immigration officers. The problems that arise are serious to the point of rape, robbing, and beating. It is not easy crossing the border illegally and secretly, but the successful ones have an interesting or even traumatic story about how it worked for them.
This poem captures the immigrant experience between the two worlds, leaving the homeland and towards the new world. The poet has deliberately structured the poem in five sections each with a number of stanzas to divide the different stages of the physical voyage. Section one describes the refugees, two briefly deals with their reason for the exodus, three emphasises their former oppression, fourth section is about the healing effect of the voyage and the concluding section deals with the awakening of hope. This restructuring allows the poet to focus on the emotional and physical impact of the journey.
Islas, Arturo. From Migrant Souls. American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context. Eds. Gabriele Rico, Barbara Roche and Sandra Mano. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995. 483-491.
Like many other migrants, Enrique had many troubles with his mother too. When Enrique first arrived to the U.S., Enrique and his mother’s relationship was going well. Lourdes was proud of Enrique for finding a job as a painter and sander. Lourdes would always brag to her friends that Enrique is her son and that he’s big and a miracle. However, Enrique starts going to a pool hall without asking Lourdes’s permission which makes her upset. Enrique often yells obscenities and mother tells him not to, but Enrique tells Lourdes that nobody can change who he is.
Enrique and many other Central American kids have a hard life. They come to America where they think their mothers will magically solve their problems because their mothers are supposed to be perfect. Enrique and others realize this isn’t true and goes on to accept it. Migrants resent their mothers a little bit, but come to start loving them as the migrants did before their mothers left. Migrants also learn about life lessons on the trains. Migrants learn that people should not be trusted, but not all people are bad. The migrants just have to learn which people are bad and which aren’t. Migrants also learned that you shouldn’t have high expectations of everything and also that you shouldn’t put your problems on one person and expect them to go away. You have to figure life out on your own.
In the opening pages of the text, Mary, nineteen, is living alone in Albuquerque. Vulnerable to love, depressed and adrift, she longs for something meaningful to take her over. Just as she is “asking the universe whether or not there was more to life than just holding down boring jobs”, she takes on the job of helping an illegal (political) refugee, José Luis who had been smuggled from El Salvador to the United States, to adjust to his new life in Albuquerque. She instantly falls in love with him and hopes to start her life over with the new aim of “taking the war out of him.”(p. 4) Providing a refuge for him, Mary, as Fellner suggests, “imagines herself to be whole and complete in the experience of love”. (2001: 72) She willingly puts José Luis as the “center” of her life (p.5) with the hope that “love would free her from her dormant condition” (Fellner 2001: ...
Jose Antonio Vargas’s article on My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant is a writing about his childhood journey from the Philippines to the United States as an Undocumented Immigrant. Vargas writes this article to emphasize the topic of immigrant and undocumented immigrant in the United States. He uses all three appeals: pathos, ethos, and logic in his writing, in specific, he mostly uses pathos throughout of his entire article with a purpose for the reader to sympathize and to feel compassion for him. The use of these appeals attract many readers, they can feel and understand his purpose is to ask for others to join and support other people who undocumented immigrant like himself. In addition, it gives other undocumented immigrant people courage
The journey of a young migrant is illustrated through the book Enrique’s Journey, written by Sonia Nazario. With all the difficulties one migrant can face, the story is told through Enrique’s experiences. Traveling from Honduras to reach the United States. Living in the twenty-first century, Enrique’s experiences capture the difficulties migrants face in search to reach the United States living in the Americas.
This novel is a great novel to give an example on how reality is to people even the high class. Through the discussion of the passage, poem and scholarly article will show how the path towards the American Dream can turn into a negative or positive outcome in a person’s life.
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
The poem “Exile” by Julia Alvarez dramatizes the conflicts of a young girl’s family’s escape from an oppressive dictatorship in the Dominican Republic to the freedom of the United States. The setting of this poem starts in the city of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, which was renamed for the brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo; however, it eventually changes to New York when the family succeeds to escape. The speaker is a young girl who is unsophisticated to the world; therefore, she does not know what is happening to her family, even though she surmises that something is wrong. The author uses an extended metaphor throughout the poem to compare “swimming” and escaping the Dominican Republic. Through the line “A hurried bag, allowing one toy a piece,” (13) it feels as if the family were exiled or forced to leave its country. The title of the poem “Exile,” informs the reader that there was no choice for the family but to leave the Dominican Republic, but certain words and phrases reiterate the title. In this poem, the speaker expresser her feeling about fleeing her home and how isolated she feels in the United States.
Through the book, Night, the author conveys the idea that the desire to reach a dream can allow an individual to overcome all their adversity. Whereas, when there is a loss of hope, there is a loss of a goal. Keeping faith and holding on to their dreams are beneficial, for they provide individuals with the strength necessary to keep carrying on all the weight of their pain and sufferings. The desire to succeed is essential if an individual hopes to achieve any dream, whether that dream is as small as passing an exam or as large as surviving in a concentration camp. The power to overcome every adversity lies deep within every individual; one must simply reach inside and grasp it.
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.