Marina Budhos is the daughter of an Indo-Guyanese father and a Jewish-American mother. They met during the 1950’s, when her father worked at the Indian consulate in New York City. Budhos grew up in a multicultural, multiracial community of the United Nations families. She feels this experience has shaped who she is and what she writes (“About the author”). Throughout all of Budhos’ novels she does a great job of showcasing the political and social problems immigrant family's face day to day. She has influenced many readers through her pieces. Marina Budhos influenced equality and immigration acceptance through her literary works including 1. “Tell us we’re Home,” 2. “The Professor of Light,” and 3. “Ask Me No Questions.”
Budhos’
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text “Tell Us We’re Home” impacted immigration acceptance and equality, by showing people immigrants shouldn't be looked at as outsiders. In this novel Jaya’s mother got convicted for theft, because of this the people of the community grew very unsure of the immigrants. The girls ended up thinking they shouldn't exist anywhere near their small town of Meadowbrook, because the people looked at them differently. “Revolution. Lola Swatloski was sitting in Mr. Cohen's social studies class, dreaming of revolution” (“Tell Us We’re Home”). Through this quote Budhos is trying to show the readers that Lola wants there to be equality. She wants to be looked at just like everyone else, not looked at like an outsider. Lola just wishes there wasn't stereotypes, and that people would treat everyone equally. This book impacted people by showing what it's like to be seen as an outsider. Throughout this book the characters didn't feel accepted, and they weren't looked at the same as everyone else. Budhos wishes immigrants would be accepted by people, and not looked at as criminals. Budhos’ text “The Professor of Light” impacted immigration acceptance, by comparing the similarities between Light and immigration. During this book we learn that Maggie Singh is the daughter of a Caribbean philosopher who studies the dual nature of Light as both particle and wave. This philosopher also believes there is a relationship between Light and immigration. Where light is similar to identity and immigration; being of a place and moving on (“The Professor of Light”). “He believed that every one of us has a fire in our eye that leads outward and joins with the light of the world” (“Chapter 1”). This quote means everyone in the world is connected in a way. We should work together to make things better. Not judge, and discriminate against one another to make things worse. This piece is very important, because if people would treat everyone equal, the world would be a better place. Budhos is trying to tell people to just accept everyone for who they are. Meaning don't judge or discriminate. If we work together things will be much better. Budhos’ text “Ask Me No Questions” impacted immigration acceptance, by showing people how immigrants aren't looked at the same by other Americans.
Throughout the novel you will learn about Nadrina Hossain and her family. The Hossain's left Bangladesh for America eight years ago on a tourist visa, they ended up staying. People soon caught on they were illegal citizens, so they fled to Canada where they were turned down. Now they're constantly on the run from deportation (“Ask Me No Questions”). “One day she’ll exist on paper in this country. She can sit on buses and take classes and get a job and never again feel that churning in her stomach if someone asks for ID” (“Ask Me No Questions”). In this Quote the author is showing how Nadrina feels she doesn't exist and belong in this country. Nadrina wishes she could be a Legal citizen, just like everyone else in her life. She can't walk around freely without worrying if someone will notice she's not a legal citizen. This quote just shows the constant fear illegal citizens face. This text impacted people by showing what immigrant people go through day to day. People shouldn't be so afraid of immigrants. All immigrants want to do is have a better life for themselves and be
free. Throughout Budhos’ work she has influenced equality and immigration acceptance. Some of her best examples of this social movement are “Tell us we’re Home,” “The Professor of Light,” and “Ask Me No Questions.” Through all of Budhos’ novels, they end up with a theme that says we should accept immigrants, and look at them as equal to us. Budhos has come up with these great pieces through her experiences, and her mission to educate people to do what's right. Budhos just wants to show people that we need to understand that immigrants aren't here to hurt, or take things away from us. They're just here to have a better life for themselves and their family. She's showing people that we shouldn't look at immigrants as outsiders, we should accept who they are.
There were many quotes throughout the book, In the Country We L1ove, that had an impact on me because I either learned something new about Diane Guerrero that I did not already know, I could relate to a few parts of her book, and my perspective of supporting undocumented immigrants grew stronger. The first quote that I decided to use is when Guerrero describes Colombia, the country where her parents are from. “The entire scene was chaotic. Colorful. Exotic. Wild. And, because of the straight-up poverty, it was also a bit unsettling… I was stuck with a realization: This could have been my life (Guerrero 111).” In making this comment, Guerrero is informing the reader that her parents grew up
Willa Cather’s 1918 novel My Ántonia is often celebrated for its complimentary depiction of the immigrants that flocked to America at the turn of the twentieth century and hailed for its progressive approach to the ever-relevant immigrant debate. Despite the novel’s superficial benevolence towards foreigners, Janis Stout questions the authenticity of the book’s (and, by extension, Cather’s) kindnesses in her critical article “Coming to America/Escaping to Europe.” Stout argues that Cather’s ethnic characters (or lack thereof) reflect the popular, discriminatory views of her time, and extracts evidence from both the novel and the author’s personal life to buttress this claim. Stout’s criticism inspired my own interpretation-- that Cather’s treatment
The story is about two sister who currently lives in America. It has to deal with moving to the United States in the 1960’s. Both sisters moved to the United States in hope to pursue their dreams and to achieve they goals with college and further education. Both having similarities in appearance and religious values. Both Bharati and her sister Mira had planned to move back to their homeland India after their education. This story relates to our point of culture having a major impact on how people judge each other because it has a huge impact on how people view the world differently because, in this example, I feel manipulated and discarded. This is such an unfair way to treat a person who was invited to stay and work here because of her talent” it is basically stating on how even immigrants (like the sisters themselves) who have come into the U.S., are sometimes given fewer benefits and rights than everyone else and that they feel discluded from being able to express themselves if they wanted to, or to have good thoughts that America is as good as people has said it was, with all this freedom. The last example is, I feel some kind of irrational attachment to India that I don’t to America. Until all this hysteria against immigrants, I was totally happy.” This demonstrates that it isn’t the country itself that makes people unsafe or unsure, it’s the people running it who try to put limitations
To begin, Charlotte and The Mother from “Borders” have both struggled with society trying to shape them into a certain type of person. Charlotte has always tried to conform to what her mother wanted since she was you. She would “...obey all rules without question or argument.” (pg.226) when it came to her mother. As she got older she began to realize that thing can be done different ways then what her mother wanted. The Mother from “Borders” has a similar problem as Charlotte. She is a proud Blackfoot citizen living in Canada but doesn't consider herself a Canadian. While she is going to visit her Daughter in Salt Lake City she must cross the border. While at the border the guard asks her about her citizenship. She answered with Blackfoot; that wasn't the answer the guard was looking for. The guard tells her “...you
Elie Wiesel once said “neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” In Michelle Cacho-Negrete’s Essay “Tell Me Something” she talks about her brother who died in the Vietnam War. In the end of the essay she challenges the reader “tell me something good about my country (739).” What is good about America is that it’s not. Hear me out, because America has been racist, sexist, and homophobic for so long that a new wave of LGBTQIA, feminism, and civil rights has emerged. As a queer, black woman these movements make me feel as though some people care about my struggles.
Immigrants come to America, the revered City upon a Hill, with wide eyes and high hopes, eager to have their every dream and wild reverie fulfilled. Rarely, if ever, is this actually the case. A select few do achieve the stereotypical ‘rags to riches’ transformation – thus perpetuating the myth. The Garcia family from Julia Alvarez’s book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, fall prey to this fairytale. They start off the tale well enough: the girls are treated like royalty, princesses of their Island home, but remained locked in their tower, also known as the walls of their family compound. The family is forced to flee their Dominican Republic paradise – which they affectionately refer to as simply, the Island – trading it instead for the cold, mean streets of American suburbs. After a brief acclimation period, during which the girls realize how much freedom is now available to them, they enthusiastically try to shed their Island roots and become true “American girls.” They throw themselves into the American lifestyle, but there is one slight snag in their plan: they, as a group, are unable to forget their Island heritage and upbringing, despite how hard they try to do so. The story of the Garcia girls is not a fairytale – not of the Disney variety anyway; it is the story of immigrants who do not make the miraculous transition from rags to riches, but from stifling social conventions to unabridged freedom too quickly, leaving them with nothing but confusion and unresolved questions of identity.
In order to obtain religious, social, political, and equality 23 million Jews immigrated to America during the years between 1880 and 1920 (Chametzky, 5). Anzia Yezierska wrote about her experiences as a poor immigrant in her fictional work becoming a voice of the Jewish people in the1920s. She struggled to obtain an education that allowed her to rise above her family’s poverty and gain a measure of autonomy. Rachel and Sara, the female protagonists, mirror the author’s life going from struggling immigrant to college graduate. Yezierska uses her own experiences to portray the Jewish immigrant experience with a woman’s perspective. She successfully gained a commercial following that allowed her to mediate the cultural differences between the mainstream culture and the Jewish people that helped resolve differences between the established Americans and these new immigrants for a time (Ebes...
219-224. Library Services Institutefor Minnesota Indians. Guidelines for Evaluating Multicultural Literature: 1970, pp. iv-v. Norton, Donna. 'Through the Eyes of a Child. Prentice Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffes, New Jersey: 1995.
For thousands of years people have left their home country in search of a land of milk and honey. Immigrants today still equate the country they are immigrating to with the Promised Land or the land of milk and honey. While many times this Promised Land dream comes true, other times the reality is much different than the dream. Immigration is not always a perfect journey. There are many reasons why families immigrate and there are perception differences about immigration and the New World that create difficulties and often separate generations in the immigrating family. Anzia Yezierska creates an immigration story based on a Jewish family that is less than ideal. Yezierska’s text is a powerful example of the turmoil that is created in the family as a result of the conflict between the Old World and the New World.
illegal immigrant from Bangladesh and her sister. Nadira is a nice and compassionate person who has a very strong bond with her family. Nadira and sister Aisha have been placed into a very precarious situation in which both their parents are absent in their lives. Their father was placed in an immigration detention facility due to an expired visa and their mom is in hiding at a local church. Both sisters must work together to save their parents and it is through this long and emotional journey that Nadira and her Mother gradually developed self confidence due to their strong bond.
Moving from the unpleasant life in the old country to America is a glorious moment for an immigrant family that is highlighted and told by many personal accounts over the course of history. Many people write about the long boat ride, seeing The Statue of Liberty and the “golden” lined streets of New York City and how it brought them hope and comfort that they too could be successful in American and make it their home. Few authors tend to highlight the social and political developments that they encountered in the new world and how it affected people’s identity and the community that they lived in. Authors from the literature that we read in class highlight these developments in the world around them, more particularly the struggles of assimilating
Throughout the poem, Baca uses imagery to express prejudice misconceptions that Americans have of immigrants. In lines one through three, “Do they come on horses with rifles and say, Ese gringo gimmee your job,” the writer creates an exaggerated image to demonstrate how racist Americans think immigrants are taking away their jobs. In addition, lines eight through ten, “Do they sneak into town at night, and…mug you, a knife at your throat, saying, ‘I want your job?’” depict immigrants as being evil and violent. The author portrays immigrants as physically taking over the work force and doing so with vicious actions. “Do you, gringo, take off your ring, drop your wallet into a blanket spread over the ground and walk away?” (4-6). Baca defends immigrants by asking Americans if they would pack their belongings and leave their families behind to move to a different country. Immigrants leave their home country and families behind in hopes of obtaining the American dream and creating a better life. Through powerful imagery, the reader can witness how Mexican immigrants are stereotyped as using violence to obtain employment.
...de effects of ‘nontraditional’ immigration, the government officially turned against its immigrant communities…” In this line, Mukherjee is showing that she had also been a victim of the new immigration laws, and that was the reason she had conformed to the country, in order to feel a sense of belonging. In this instance, exemplification is used to develop her argument in an effective manner that causes the audience to feel a sense of guilt and even listen to her argument.
Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri, an Indian by descent, was born in London in August 1967, to a Bengali immigrant Indian parents. “Jhumpa” is the nickname easier for the teachers remember his name. The Lahiri family moved from England to Rhode Island when Jhumpa was two years old. Her father was a librarian at Rhode Island University and her mother was a school teacher. At age of seven, Lahiri started to embrace writing about what she saw and felt. While growing up, Lahiri lived two lives: An Indian at home and An American outside of the home. Despite of living most of their life in the western world, Lahiri’s parents called “Calcutta” their home unlike Lahiri who thought Rhode Island as her hometown. Lahiri always felt her family had a different li...
Anita Desai (1937) is a modern Indo-English writer, she is famous for her fiction writing, not only in India but also around the world. She emerged on the literary horizon after the independence of India and her main focus is, her writing on the ‘contemporary issues’ (Batts, 2011, pg.3). Desai mostly writes about the miserable plight of women suffering under their insensitive and inconsiderate husbands, fathers and brothers. All of which, leads to a man-woman relationship bringing characters into alienation, withdrawal, loneliness, isolation and lack of communication. Most of her novel’s protagonist are alienated from the world, society, family and even from their own selves because they are not average people but individuals. The similar situation also applies in “The clear Light of Day” published on 1980. Like most of her protagonist, Bimla is alienated and single-handedly faces the ferocious assault of existence but finally finds her freedom at the end. Thus this paper will portray Bimla’s unique character which will elucidate Bimla’s entrapment of her own making and attainment of freedom at the end.