No one enjoys making decisions without the knowledge of a definitive outcome, but oftentimes, it is vital to one’s future to make that decision. This idea is explored in the poem, “Exile,” by Julia Alvarez, the story, “The Trip,” by Laila Lalami, and in the article, “Outlaw: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant,” by Jose Antonio Vargas. In all three texts, the characters gamble their lives for a goal, which demonstrates the theme that, sometimes it is necessary to take risks to ensure a better quality of life. To begin with, in the poem “Exile,” Alvarez conveys the theme through the parents’ characters, specifically the father. For instance, she describes his actions and what the protagonist overheard as the were preparing to leave. The father, “...looked out/at a curfew-darkened Ciudad …show more content…
250, lines 4-8). In this scene, it is obvious that the father and uncles are anxious about the plan, which they would not need to be if they were confident in their strategy. Their concerns are enough that they need a backup plan in case they are discovered. One can infer that if they are caught attempting to escape the dictatorship, they will be severely punished. However, even with knowledge of this risk and worry about failure, the little girl’s family is still doing it. Eventually, the family does achieve their initial goal of reaching the United States, but then from there, their future is unsure. In this new land, they are described as, “...two swimmers looking down/at the quiet surface of our island waters,/seeing their faces right before plunging in,/eager, afraid, not yet sure if the outcome,”(pg. 253, lines 65-68). Although the most prominent danger
I read the book Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez. Anita, an eleven year old girl, is suddenly sent into a very scary and unknown world, right in her own home. Her cousins are running away to the United states, but to get away from what? Her parents are keeping secrets and she tries to get information from her sister, but finds out very little. Anita finds herself struggling when she is forced to grow up very quickly and try not to act as scared as she feels at times. Through the view of a young girl, this story really captures what it’s like to feel like immigration is the only option for a family.
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.
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...
The characters and themes in these writings contrast and relate in several ways. The poem is told through the perspective of the grandfather’s grandchild, who cares for him, saying certain things remind them of him after he didn’t “live here anymore” by stating that their grandfather “is blankets and spoons and big brown shoes.” Like the grandfather in “Abuelito Who”, the grandfather in “The Old Grandfather” is old and it is stated that his legs “would not carry him” and his eyes “could not see”, which affected his family’s feelings towards him. The grandfather’s old age was viewed as a weakness, and he was not treated as an equal by his family, such as not being able to sit with them at the table for dinner.
The Dominican Republic was not a very good place to live in during the 1950s. Dictator Rafael Leonid, better known as Trujillo made an effort to associate the country with white Americans in 1939. This caused a generation of Dominicans to hate the nearby Haitians. He banned many traditional rituals and deplored the Haitian people by rewriting history with Haitians being the villains. Eventually, in 1959, Trujillo blamed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for the Dominican discontent and was assassinated (Bailey). Julia Alvarez’s poem “Exile” is about a girl and her father’s departure from the Dominican Republic to New York, most likely as a reaction to the political uproar in their home country. In “Exile”, Alvarez uses a flashback, characterization, and symbolism to show the internal conflict of a young girl experiencing the American dream while losing her old behaviors.
With its complex structure, following the characters of Pedro Paramo is no easy feat. Its heterglossic nature requires readers to attentively channel all of their focus into the narrator, making it difficult to follow individual character development or relationships. However, using the archetypes of Mexican men and women, as revealed in Octavio Paz’s “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” helps aid in the understanding of Pedro’s relationships formed between men and women as he both subscribes the archetypes and breaks them down.
This topic is a problem, but it may not be all that it is said to be. Throughout this piece the author shows us what is wrong with system of keeping illegals out of our country. She opens talking of her cousin Bill Pratt, who she claims rode freely from New Mexico to Arizona without disturbances throughout the early 1900’s. From a story of freedom of the past, s...
After reading The Book of the Unknown Americans, I realized how difficult immigrating to the United States can be. I am an immigrant also, so just reading the story makes me relate to many problems immigrants experience relocating to a different country. Immigrants often face many issues and difficulties, but for some it is all worth it, but for others there comes a point in time where they have to go back to their hometown. Alma and Arturo Rivera came to the United States to better their life, but also so that Maribel could attend a special education school. While Arturo had a job things had gone well for the family, but once Arturo lost the job and passed away the two of them had to go back because they felt that that was the best option for them. Reading this book made me realize how strong an individual has to be to leave their own country and relocate somewhere else not knowing if this will better your life or cause one to suffer.
People of Latin America are often casted out and don't know what is going on causing them to not make important decisions. Authors such as Ángel González show examples like this in his four poems. All of Latin America literature shows examples like González's, showing the reader many tones in the poetry. Authors use many themes throughout their poetry to create a recurring dark tone. Certain authors use specific themes for each of their poems, some being person vs self, person vs society, and antithesis.
In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s, The Myth of the Latin Woman, I believe she is reliable and that she is not fabricating or over-exaggerating her experiences in her memoir because she is writer, autobiographer, poet, and etc. This will give people the counter claim that because she is a writer she is going to fabricate a story, however, I do not agree with that. My first reason why I don’t agree with that is because everything she spoke happens to many races and women either people are to ignorant to realize that this happens to minorities in the US or have never experienced for themselves. Her story shines a vast light on the stereotypes Latin women and women in general have experienced.
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
Furthermore, Vargas faced many personal and career obstacles in his story. For example, at the age of 12 his mother sent him thousands of miles away to live with Vargas’s grandparents in America who were both naturalized citizens because she wanted to give him a better life. After Vargas arrived in San Francisco, he fell in love with the area and loved living with his grandparents. As years went by, Vargas, who was 16 at this time, went to the D.M.V. to get his driver’s permit, but fortunately the clerk working at the office told Vargas that his Green Card was fake and never to come back. After questioning his grandparents, Vargas finds out that he was smuggled into the United States of America and all his documents were fraudulent. In Vargas’s essay, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant”, his story fiddles with the readers emotions and makes the reader ponder the issue of immigration in the United States of
Before going any further, note that this story has been translated from Spanish into English by Gregory Rabassa; meaning that it is not in Marquez’s own voice. The nuances of his text are not fully portrayed when reading, leading to the story being stiltedly but proficiently written. But without further ado, here are the main points.
Many families, composed of undocumented individuals, across the U.S, live in constant oppression and fear that at given moment their lives can completely change if a loved one is deported. This continuous cycle of devaluating the undocumented had caused frustration in hundreds of individuals who now join the fight against inadequate undocumented rights. In the book Dreams Deported many share their stories of resistance against the system that tears apart families and shatters dreams through deportation. The story of Hareth Andrade is one of strong resilience against deportation that portrays anti-hegemonic ideas and actions. Hereth and her younger sister came to the U.S in 2001 under tourist Visas but they stayed long after they expired thus
The book The Children of Sanchez by Oscar Lewis is about a poor family in Mexico City. The father in the family is Jesus Sanchez, who is fifty years old and he has four children, Manual (32), Robert (29), Consuelo (27) and Marta (25). The main idea behind the book is to provide the readers with the way that such a family tends to live. For instance, even though these are five grown adults, they have to share a one-room apartment that is located in a slum tenement in Mexico City, which is one of the largest and greatest cities in Latin America. It is interesting to note that by showing us these lives, Lewis is able to depict not just the aspect of poverty, but he is able to highlight the culture of poverty that tends to exist in such areas