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My life as an immigrant essay
Immigration history essay
My life as an immigrant in the US
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Randall and Morales: Struggles of Immigrants
America has long been the land of hopes and dreams People from all over the world came to America for a better life. America was underpopulated. For the country to build and develop, she needed more people, therefore the government passed Act 1802, which invited people to come here and become citizens (Welcome). The native people of the country welcomed everybody to come live and become citizens here. They also claimed that they would respect and appreciate human rights and would not discriminate against people of other nations. Randall and Morales describe the efforts and struggles of immigrants who came to the United States and tried to become her citizens, a thing that in reality is very difficult and full of obstacles. Even though their writing and lifestyles are different, the theme of both poems is the same in that both poems describe the struggles and obstacles faced by those trying to fit in where they weren’t often welcome.
Dudley Randall was an African-American poet from Detroit, Michigan (Randall). He was born on January 14th, 1914, in Washington, D.C., to Arthur George Clyde and Ada Viola Randall (Randall). At a very young age Randall developed a very strong interest in poetry and at just 13 he published his first poem which appeared in the Detroit Free Press (Randall). In 1935 he married Ruby Hudson, but this marriage did not last (Randall). He then married Mildred Pinckney, but this marriage did not last either (Randall). In 1957 Randall finally found the one (Randall). Her name was Vivian Spencer (Randall). They had one daughter together (Randall). Randall served in the military during World War II (Randall). He later founded a publishing company called Broadside Pre...
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...ot” the pot creates a new identity for the immigrants. They are many origins changed “magically” into one new people. Gaining acceptance from others often requires one to face many struggles and obstacles such as confusion and discrimination. In order to overcome those struggles and obstacles one must not lose sight of where they came from, who they are, and who they hope to become.
Works Cited
"Aurora Levins Morales's Biography." Red Room. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
Barnet, Sylvan Ed. Introduction to Literature. New York: Boston Little, Brown &, 1981. Print.
Randall, The Biography of Dudley. "The Biography of Dudley Randall." Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2014.
"Welcome to Research Centre - Petra Christian University." Welcome to Research Centre - Petra Christian University. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
Roberts was born in 1905 to a working class family in a Salford slum. He took a position as an engineering apprentice following his completion of school. Following his apprenticeship, he was unemployed for three years, utilizing this time to study languages. After becoming a teacher, Roberts wrote many award winning stories, plays, and scripts. Roberts became a farmer for sixteen years before beginning a career teaching in prisons. Roberts...
The female, adolescent speaker helps the audience realize the prejudice that is present in a “melting-pot” neighborhood in Queens during the year 1983. With the setting placed in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, the poem allows the audience to examine the experience of a young immigrant girl, and the inequality that is present during this time. Julia Alvarez in “Queens, 1963” employs poetic tools such as diction, figurative language, and irony to teach the reader that even though America is a place founded upon people who were strangers to the land, it is now home to immigrants to claim intolerance for other foreigners, despite the roots of America’s founding.
...is father brought to small town Michigan. Matt Forster, a biographer, states that “Much of Roethke’s poetry would draw on the imagery of his childhood, such as the landscapes of Michigan, the dirt and roots he remembered from working in the nursery, and memories of his father (Forster 2005).” Roethke wrote about his childhood throughout his literary career, and his poems reflect small town life in Michigan and the important people with whom he was surrounded during his childhood and adolescence.
Hugh Wheeler was born on March 19, 1912 to parents, Harold, who was a civil servant in the Office of the Public Trustee and Florence Wheeler, whose parents were in truck manufacturing. He was born in Northwood, Middlesex, England, (Obituary) and lived there until he was 22 years old. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of London in 1932 (Gale). After receiving his degree, he decided to move to the United States and pursue his love of writing. He served in the American armed forces in World War II. He also became a naturalized American citizen in 1942. He remained in the United States until his death in 1987 (Obituary). There are few details of Wheeler’s personal life except that he never married and lived privately (Document). He was well respected in the literary world, in which he accumulated a variety of awards.
In Chapter 8 of Major Problems in American Immigration History, the topic of focus shifts from the United States proper to the expansion and creation of the so called American Empire of the late Nineteenth Century. Unlike other contemporary colonial powers, such as Britain and France, expansion beyond the coast to foreign lands was met with mixed responses. While some argued it to be a mere continuation of Manifest Destiny, others saw it as hypocritical of the democratic spirit which had come to the United States. Whatever their reasons, as United States foreign policy shifted in the direction of direct control and acquisition, it brought forth the issue of the native inhabitants of the lands which they owned and their place in American society. Despite its long history of creating states from acquired territory, the United States had no such plans for its colonies, effectively barring its native subjects from citizenship. Chapter 8’s discussion of Colonialism and Migration reveals that this new class of American, the native, was never to be the equal of its ruler, nor would they, in neither physical nor ideological terms, join in the union of states.
Often depicted as a melting pot, America is always being put on a pedestal by the rest of the world due to the large amounts of successful immigrants in the United States. Millions of people have packed their bags and moved to America in hopes of achieving their dreams. While some succeed, others fail and are let down by the dim reality that not everyone can achieve their goals. This essay will compare the poems, “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes and “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus to exhibit my perspective on both works. Both poems portray people’s hopes that America will be great, however, due to the different eras and the authors’ backgrounds, the poems have different meanings. Lazarus’ poem was written in the early stages of America, as it describes her cheerful
Waggoner, Hyatt H. "A Writer of Poems: The Life and Work of Robert Frost," The Times Literary Supplement. April 16, 1971, 433-34.
American was a prosperous country with incredible economic growth between the end of Reconstruction and the Great Depression. It was during this time that "industrial expansion went into high gear because increasing manufacturing efficiencies enabled American firms to cut prices and yet earn profits for financing still better equipment (Henretta 488)." During this era, the manufacturing of steel, the construction of railroads, factories, and warehouses, and the growing demand for technological advancements, increased greatly. Philanthropists, such as Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and John D. Rockefeller, took advantage of the situation they were in by investing large sums of capital into the growing economy. Carnegie constructed an enormous steel mill outside of Pittsburgh that became one of the worlds' largest. Mellon started the Union Trust Fund in Pittsburgh, which developed in its later years to one of the largest financial institutions in the country. Rockefeller, who was involved in the petroleum industry, built the Standard Oil Company. Philanthropists were not the only group of people funding the growth of Corporate America. "The federal government, mainly interested in encouraging interregional development, provided financial credit and land grants (Henretta 490)." As a whole, the American economy was growing at an incredible rate. It was due to this growth that countless immigrants from Europe made their way over the Atlantic, as well as African Americans migrating from the South, both with hopes of improving their own standards of life.
America is often known as the land of opportunity, a place where you can be free. Many Immigrants came to America so that they could have a greater possibility at succeeding in life. Immigrants took a leap of faith when coming to America, for some it worked out well but for others they had a difficult time here. Despite the struggles that the immigrants encountered such as; standing out from others, being separated from their families, and breaking their culture, the immigrants are still grateful to be in America because they were in better conditions than they were in their home land. When viewing interviews or looking at an immigrant’s perspective you get many responses to being in America, some major things that stood out were the amount of freedom the immigrant had, and the age of the immigrant. These two things had a huge impact on the opinion of America from an Immigrants point of view.
When most people think about immigration to the United States, they think of the U.S. as being the “land of opportunity,” where they will be able to make all of their dreams come true. For some people, immigration made their lives richer and more fulfilled. This however, was not always the case. A place that is supposed to be a “Golden Land” (Marcus 116) did not always welcome people with open arms. Even after people became legal citizens of the United States, often times the natural born Americans did not treat the immigrants as equals but rather as outsiders who were beneath them in some way. In some situations, people’s lives were made worse by coming to the “land of opportunity.” Often times people were living no better than they were in their own countries not able to make ends meet, just to live in the United States. Virtually all immigrants during the 1900’s had the same dream, to become successful and provide for their families as citizens of the United States, but they soon found out that the life in their new country was not going to be easy.
Immigrants have been a vital part of the U.S. ever since the day the country was founded. But perspectives on immigrants have varied through time and one of the most popular ways of presenting them was through political cartoons. From the 1860s-1910s one of the biggest issues the U.S. was facing was how to properly regulate the flow of immigrants into the country. We also see this tying of Americanness and whiteness, where even certain Europeans weren’t considered full American even though they were white. White Americans wanted more white seeming migrants which would help further establish the American identity as white. The political cartoons show the shifting perspective placed on immigrants, from a universal fear of them, to a more divided
The Struggle of Immigrants in America The U.S. has a prolonged history of discrimination. In the late 17th century, when America was declared a free country, only the white Gentiles had the privilege of “freedom” and African Americans continued their lives as slaves for many decades. As the country grew, it became a dream land, a refuge for immigrants who fled their country to seek freedom and pursue happiness. However, the gene of discrimination stuck deeply in the mind of the early founding fathers; hence their descendents also obtained the hatred toward immigrants who look differently. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, many immigrants such as the Jews, Chinese and Japanese immigrants who came to America with the hope for a better life also got exploited, and treated brutally in many ways.
Immigration keeps America diverse; there is a lot of value in such diversity. It teaches citizens to respect and bond with one another regardless of differences. However, America has a dark history as it pertains to immigration. Our ancestors removed Native Americans when all they wanted was this: "Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself- and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty" as Chief Joseph stated in For the Record: An Indian's Perspective, (51-53). Even though there are many great things about being and becoming an American, there are a lot of difficulties for immigrants to face when arriving in the United States. For example you would hope that tension does not just arise randomly between people that have never met before. However, that is the case between the newly immigrated and native born Americans. This is because of ignorance and immigrants being labeled as "outsiders" trying to steal the so called native’s jobs. There are many obstacles taken for granted by non-immigrants. Some current Americans do not truly appreciate the struggles their ancestors had to endure so that they would not have to.
Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco. When his father died, he moved to Massachusetts with his family to be closer to his grandparents. He loved to stay active through sports and activities such as trapping animals and climbing trees. He married his co- valedictorian, Elinor Miriam White, in 1895. He dropped out of both Dartmouth and Harvard in his lifetime. Robert and Elinor settled on a farm in Massachusetts, which his grandfather bought him. It was one of the many farms on which he would live in throughout his lifetime. Frost spent the next 9 years writing poetry while poultry farming. When poultry farming did not work out, he went back to teaching English. He moved to England in 1912 and became friends with many people who were also in the writing business. After moving back to America in 1915, Frost bought a farm in New Hampshire and began reading his poems aloud at public gatherings. Out of the blue, he suddenly had many family disasters. Frost’s youngest daughter and wife died and his son committed suicide, soon after which another daughter institutionalized. Darker poetry, su...
Frost, Robert, and Robert Faggen. The Notebooks of Robert Frost. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2006. Print.