“Home” is different for anyone you ask, it could be the feeling of something, or a specific physical place, but no matter what you call it, it is a place that makes you feel safe and secure. That is exactly what Eagle Pass is to Maria Cortinas. When people think of Eagle Pass, Texas if they do they don’t think much of it because it is a small town that not many people are familiar with. It isn’t a place that gets talked about in the master narrative of Texas, generally because it is small and doesn’t have much going on. Even though she travelled to many other places that are both bigger and have a lot more to offer than Eagle Pass it is a place Maria loves and will always hold dear to her heart.
Small towns are all the same according to most
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Not just the physicality of it but the vibes she gets from being in Eagle Pass just make her happy. The small town where she grew up, went to school, and where she had so many cherished memories that could never be replaced by any other place. It is a familiar place where she used to go dancing every weekend with her friends and family, which is where she met Hector. There is so much that she feels that she owes to Eagle Pass because it gave her the life she had and she wouldn’t be who she is if she lived anywhere else. Eagle Pass was more to her than a physical place where she lived, it was a place that taught her humility, and how to live a good life with basically nothing. One of her favorite days in Eagle Pass was when they would have “Friendship Days” which is a day where they allowed people from Mexico to come to the United States for one day without a passport and they had a festival with carnival rides, music, and lots of food that people would bring across the border. It was one of the many things that Maria loved about Eagle Pass, which is not something that happens now or ever could happen again after the fence was built between Mexico and the US …show more content…
This was just the beginning, and later the US sued Eagle Pass to gain control of it and build fencing around the US-Mexican border. She lost her connection to her Mexican roots that she had at her fingertips. But technically because she was born in the United States she would never truly have that connection because even on friendship day they would all go back. But this wasn’t the only excluded group Maria never truly got to gain a connection with, there was also the Kickapoo Indians. They had been forced to move to so many places by the US government and that has not changed. According to Maria’s experience with them they lived under a bridge and didn’t talk to anyone and no one cared much for them. But now their reservation (which they were barely given in 1983) is popular because of the casino that is on the reservation. These things took away the whole concept that Eagle Pass was the place to go to relax and just be “home”. Some people don’t see it the same was as Maria but she will never deny it as her town no matter what happens. This small town is the place Maria would take over any big city or town because it is where she feels she belongs, it’s the place that made her who she is
The Europeans who claimed what was to become America chose to integrate the land's present inhabitants and future immigrants in order to become the dominating race and, consequently, made other cultures feel inferior to their own. The Angel family, Mexican-Indian immigrants and the subject of Arturo Islas' Migrant Souls, becomes victim to the Americans' forceful demands for conformity. While Sancho, the father, never complains about assimilation, yet never becomes fully "assimilated," his wife, Eduviges, strives to be a part of the American culture. These conflicting reactions and the existing prejudice in the community leave their daughter, Josie, uncertain of her true identity.
The crossing of the Rio Grande into Mexico is an important structural device and symbol of the novel. This is when they enter the frame. of the novel in which all the conflicts take place. The crossing of the river naked is symbolic of the cleansing of their souls as well as a new beginning. In only a short time after arriving in Mexico, conflicts start.
The Arizona atmosphere was visibly different in both literal and nonliteral ways from Kentucky. Taylor’s lifestyle would have been drastically contrasting with how she thrived in her new home of Tucson. Apart from having a night and day experience at maternity, and getting a fresh start at life on her own, Taylor also met a new group of people who changed her in many ways. Lou Ann, who molded her into a better mother, Mattie, who helped her to overcome fears, Esperanza, though she spoke very little, managed to open Taylor’s eyes the horrors of a life she would never have to experience, and finally Turtle, who made Taylor realize what she loved most in life. Pittman, Kentucky did not have any of these individuals to teach the protagonist of this story.
Hector Esperanza, an immigrant from Mexico who has lived in Los Angeles almost his entire life begins the novel by introducing what he believes the American dream is all about. He says, “We run into this American dream with a determination to shed everything we know and love that weighs us down if we have any hope of survival. This is how we learn to navigate the terrain” (Skyhorse 1). Hector is essentially saying in order for one to obtain what one wants, one must lose things in order to gain. Loss can be people, culture, homes, anything that meant a lot to someone and they gave it up in order to set a better life for themselves in America. To become...
The definition of home is: the place where one lives permanently. Home is a place where one feels accepted, loved, and comfortable enough to be themselves completely. In Nella Larsen’s “Quicksand”, main character Helga is a bi-racial woman in the 1920’s who struggles internally with where she feels she belongs and where she can call home. Throughout the entire novel Helga moves to many different places to try and feel at home. In the society that Helga is cursed to have to live in, biracial people are not common and rarely accepted in many communities. Personally I don’t feel like Helga would have ever found a place to call her real home, using the definition where home is a permanent place to comfortably live, where she would chose to stay
Mattie sacrifices her business, her reputation, and her life to help out illegal aliens that are running, for one reason or another, from their original country. Most of these aliens are searching for a better life in America. Mattie assists them by providing them with housing, food, and medical attention whenever needed. She knows the consequences involved, and yet she perseveringly volunteers to give these people sanction. "There was another whole set of people who spoke Spanish and lived with her for various lengths of
...s journey is essential in order to portray the pains endured to make it "home". The constant moving from Texas to Georgia to Korea to a psychiatric ward and ultimately back to Georgia, is what makes the story so grabbing and moving. After all the relocations and struggles are endured throughout their lives, Frank and Cee realize that, as long as they are together, Lotus, Georgia is their true home. People say that life is bitter-sweet, and that pain and misery must be felt before joy and laughter. For this family, it took being terrorized out of their home in Texas, forced to live in unwanted circumstances in Georgia, surviving the Korean War, suffering with PTSD in a psychiatric ward, and rescuing his sister from a near death experience, to find "home". The physical journey is what sets stories apart, and Morrison was able to create an unforgettable one.
... did Pat Mora mention that she tries to hide from one culture behind another or that she is trying to replace one culture with the another. She's just trying to figure out the misunderstanding perspectives from both parties. The title fits perfectly because this individual is a Mexican-American who doesn't know her position in the eyes of others. She feels as if she does belong to a group but at the same time she feels as if shes an outsider to another. In other words a "Legal Alien" . After one analyzes and views the different perspectives of the individual's family and co-workers, the female character in the poem can realize that hybridity and binaries make her who is she.
In the novel The Tortilla Curtain, written by T.C Boyle the reader is presented with two distinctive families who both shared the same dream—the American Dream, without even taken any notice of it. Boyle separates both families by giving them a different form of life styles distinguishing them from one another. In one side living at the top of the hills we have the Mossbacher’s, who live in a wealthy community; at the bottom of the hill the Rincon’s live out in the open—literally. This indicates that the Mossbacher’s represent the wealthy and the Rincon’s represent the illegal immigrants in America. Through the use of symbolism such as the car accident, the coyote and the wall, T.C Boyle unfolds the unattainability of the American Dream for
In Elena’s own introduction to the novel, she recalls an empty, inhabited American West and questions why the forefathers of South Texas have been forgotten:
Home is related to this increase of freedoms for African American citizens in the United States, when they were becoming working citizens instead of slaves. When African American started to gain freedoms they were allowed to join the army and other establishments. This story reflects the American Dream by showing that you need to believe in yourself to accomplish goals or tasks that you set for yourself. Also the importance of home and family play a major role because Frank would stop at nothing to get his sister and to get back home.
She cannot change her past and where she is from, but she can change her future and who she is capable of becoming. Circumstances do not have to limit how much success someone can get. All the problems, the mistakes, and the poverty around her, motivates Esperanza to want to change and have a house of her own. She wants to forget her past, but she will always remember the people that lived by her and the events that happened there that started shaping her into a woman and who she is becoming. “You live right here, 4006 Mango, Alicia says and points to the house I am ashamed of. No, this is not my house I say and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I’ve lived here, I don’t belong. I don’t belong. I don’t ever want to come from here. You have a home, Alicia, and one day you’ll go there, to a town you remember, but me I never had a house, not even a photograph . . . only one I dream of. No Alicia says. Like it or not you are Mango Street, and one day you’ll come back too. Not me. Not until somebody makes it better. Who’s going to do it? The mayor? And the thought of the mayor coming to Mango Street make me laugh out loud. Who’s going to do it? Not the mayor.” This vignette talks about how no one will make a change so Esperanza needs to if she wants to see change. Esperanza is ashamed about where she lives, and knows that no one will do anything about it not even the mayor. Esperanza wants to belong to something that she feels proud of and something that she doesn’t want to be ashamed and looked down
Home is where you go and everyone, everyone has to love you, Home is where your Family is. Loung Ung grew up much of her life with little family in comparison to the large group she left behind half way across the globe in Cambodia in exchange for promise in America. We read about this in the novel Lucky Child an autobiography by Loung Ung. All the big moments of Loung’s life, all the people, and memories by the end of the day that she remembers most are the ones Loung shares with family the same is true for her sister and at the moments when she felt hate she was alone without her sister and vis versa.
“This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona” discusses the physical and mental journey of Victor, a Native American man in the state of Washington, as he goes to Phoenix, Arizona to claim his father’s remains and his savings account. While on this journey, Victor learns about himself, his father, and his Indian culture with the help of his estranged friend, Thomas Builds-the–Fire. The author, Sherman Alexie, plays on the stereotypes of Native Americans through the characters of Victor and Thomas. While Thomas is portrayed as the more traditional and “good” Native American, Victor comes across as the “bad” Native American. Through the use of this binary relationship, Alexie is able to illustrate the transformation of these characters as they reconcile with each other, and break out of these stereotypes in the process.
Many people have very different perceptions of the word home. While some think of home as a place, others describe it as a person or a feeling. People in different situations often have unlike views on the topic. For example, in the short story The Smell of Home by Chika Unigwe the author feels that home is in his wife and makes this realization when forced into a situation where he must move away. On the other hand, the article “After a lifetime of loss, refugee finds a new home in Buffalo” from the Buffalo News very much considers home a place you make for yourself. The true meaning of home is a feeling of comfort and relaxation.