In my home country I heard that: America is a place where dreams can come true. This is the reason why my family immigrated to America and settled in Queens five years ago. Everyone in the world wants to have a bite of this big apple, New York City. But the path to make this dream come true is long and difficult. The two articles, “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska and “New York Was Our City On The Hill” by Edwidge Danticat, fully express the hardships of the immigration journey.
Struggles with work, money, illness, and poverty are themes these two stories share. On the road to their dream, does immigrants have to face more obstacles and give up their past in order to success. In the story, “America and I”, the author describes the experience of having her first American jobs. She works for an American family, but she ends up with no pay and being humiliated by her employers.
“For a long, long time the thought of ever working in an “America” family made me tremble with fear, like the fear of wild wolves.”The author used a simile to show her painful moment after she find out and she got no pay after all her hard work. The work problem also was described in the other story “New York Was Our City On The Hill”. “For years my father had worked two minimum wage jobs to support two household in two countries. One job was in a textile factory, where my mother also worked, and another in a night car wash.
” From these two sentences, we can see what kinds of jobs immigrants can get; we also can see that they work hard for a living.Immigrants start in a new country from zero from the bottom of society. Another theme of these two stories share is struggle. In the story, “New York Was Our City On The Hill” the author’s mother struggles with illness and with making a living. “Doctor, I have children at home and work tomorrow,” my mother said. ” The author used dialogue to show his mother’s awareness that she had to work no matter what.
In her mind, going to work and making money was more important than her own health.The reason behind this is their family has pressure on paying the bills. It was the same in the other story, “and I could not tear it out I couldn't find it-my America, where I would work for love and not for a living, I was like a thing following blindly after something for off in the dark! ” Yezierska uses figurative language to show her struggle between what she wants to do and what she is actually doing. By working as a seamstress in a dark basement, she doesn't see hope in her life; this is not what she expect from America.
Everyone struggles at some point in their life, but immigrants seem to struggle more. immigrants struggle for the basic needs of life, struggle between dreams and reality. Because I immigrated to America, I feel so connected with these two stories. I think this is because they are also my own story. My family and I immigrated to America five years ago; we also lived through some of these same difficulties. My parents used to work in a hospital in China.
They gave up everything and chose to come here and started over from zero.Because of not being proficient in English and therefore not being able to get equivalent health licenses, they can no longer get the jobs they’ d had as a phlebotomist and disease control specialist. Now, my father works at a supermarket, earning minimum wage, six days a week. After paying the bills, there is not much money left. I understand their sacrifice is for me, my parents hope someday that I will graduate from college and make money.
They want me to have a good life, and they don't want to see me work six days with minimum wage.My mother told me that I can’t repeat their past. Our family struggled as immigrants to live. My parent put all their hopes on me, so I need to work twice as hard as other people.
Because I am learning English as a second language, I need to work hard on my English, not just for me but also to help my parents conduct their business, since I am responsible for translating everything for them from English to Chinese and vice versa. Just like Yezierska, sometimes I also question my life and my future.Although life is hard in America, I will never give up. Although all immigrants have their own stories, these stories are all the same. No matter if you are like Anzia Yezierka, struggling from living her dream, or like Edwindge Donticat’s parent; working in many jobs just to support their family, we all share the same dream, which is the America dream.
Although the path for immigrants towards success is long and rugged, nothing can stop us from moving on. Every day, we are closer to the dream.
