When people do come to America, they see a light at the end of the tunnel. However sometimes that light is blocked and hard to see because they are different, they are not from here, because they are immigrants. Legal immigration has been around since the early 1900s, which one would think that racism would not be a problem; but it still is. In the book My Ántonia by Willa Cather, it follows the journey of a boy named Jim who has befriended an immigrant from Bohemia named Antonia. Antonia’s family or the Shimerdas came to America to get a chance on the American dream.
There has been no rain for crops to grow and no clean, drinkable water. The life in Las Lomas has been very hard for the villagers, if takes them a lot of time to get water. This might change the personalities of the villagers and how they feel. Every morning in Las Lomas, the people wake up hoping for some rain for their rain god Parjanya. This made the villagers lose a lot of their hope and lower their self-esteem.
Who wants to see a world power “fall” to a tiny country’s problem? The answer: no one. The U.S. didn’t count for the fact that if they backed the anti-communist South Koreans, the Soviet Union and China would back the communist North Koreans. Ultimately, the U.S. underestimated the Chinese and the problems it would cause for the U.S. Therefore, this is another reason why the Korean War is the forgotten war.
The wife ends up leaving Chris and his son because they are unable to afford everything and there is too much arguing, therefore they are not meant for each other. One day Chris is walking past a stock market office he sees everyone coming out of there all so happy. He wishes he could be in there to. He ends up going for an interview and gets the job, even though he was dressed badly from being in the jail the night before. Chris realizes that even though the job there had no salary it was not all about the money.
Also, when Jeremiah is working in the supermarket, throwing the food away goes against his values and for American people that’s normal. The concept of work for Sudanese people is also different form Americans. When Paul is working for the fabric, he works as much as he can and join the parts as fast as he can but his colleagues, tell him to slow down and to work slower. Also, in Sudanese culture, it is very different the concept of family. The roll of the woman is very different and the refugees are very surprised that Carrie is an independent woman that works for its own and doesn’t have a husband because in their culture, the man (also called Chief) is the one who maintain and protect a family.
Also, there were rarely any customers so the store was as dead as a ghost town. Another bad feature was that none of the other employees were very helpful at all. Every time I would ask another associate for help, I was always referred to the supervisor. When I would call the supervisor, the supervisor would refer me to the associates. I was caught in the middle and was depicted as someone that was not worth talking to.
Striving for the American Dream For hundreds of years, people from foreign countries have been immigrating to the United States in pursuit of one common goal—to achieve the American dream. The novel, Typical American, by Gish Jen explores this same journey of a Chinese man named Ralph Chang, his sister Theresa, and his wife Helen as they experience life in America. Ralph’s original intention of immigrating to America was to earn his college degree, but as we find as the novel progresses, he becomes influenced by other people, which causes his dreams to be altered. Through reading this book, I have come to realize that while our dreams might change, we are always striving toward accomplishing something great. In the beginning of the novel, we find Ralph on his journey to the United States with the aspiration in mind to earn his PhD.
Arriving late at the bazaar, he notices that “nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness” and also recognises, “a silence like that which pervades a church after service” (Joyce 114). The fact that the bazaar is almost closed and empty, means he will not be able to buy something for the girl he is infatuated with. More so, he could not buy an appropriate gift for the girl from the stalls that were still open because he didn’t have enough money. Thus, his disappointment begins as the bazaar wasn’t exotic and had no aspect of an “Eastern enchantment” (Joyce 112) as he had imagined. As the narrator continues to move around visiting the bazaar, moving from one of the stalls still opened to the next, his state of disappointment increases.
The Industrial Revolution’s factory system was an inadequate experience for laborers thanks to long, taxing working days and the lack of concern towards the personal hygiene of factory workers. The average workday for factory laborers was approximately ten hours, starting at six A.M. and ending at half past five P.M (A Working Day in a Manchester Cotton Mill 155). This was very demanding to factory workers when compared to today’s 9-to-5 workday, which is still considered tedious. Also, the punishments for not meeting the requirements for the workday were very harsh. For the act of being even momentarily late to work, workers were charged twopence, and some factories would even close the gates of the factory, which disallowed workers from going to their job if tardy (A Working Day in a Manchester Cotton Mill 154).
However the railway took a long time to build with parts of it not being completed meaning that this didn’t happen and no one benefited from it. The working and living conditions of these people living in the urban areas was awful as many were encouraged to live in cities but couldn’t afford it when they arrived as wages were low and didn’t rise with inflation. Disease spread quickly and houses were crowded with several families. There was no government protection for workers and as there were real trade unions it was almost impossible for any problems to be heard let alone action be taken. ???