1. Group E--ldykes26

In my story, Sigh, Gone, Phuc Tran talks about how he is the opposite. Early in the book he describes what his life was like as a young child refugee. His Vietnamese family moved to Pennsylvania after they needed to relocate from bombings in Saigon. Obviously the kids at school notice how he's different, doesn't understand English, and is wearing extremely limited clothes. He finally starts to get into fights with the kids at school, one specific time because another student calls him a gook. Even though he doesn't know what it means, he knows it is an insult and he punches the other kid in the face. All Phuc wants to do is fit in with everyone else. Despite this, his father is insistent that he and his brother learn Vietnamese. At one point Phuc decides that he no longer wants to, "I had made up my mind that I was not going to learn to read Vietnamese, that it was a waste of my efforts, and so I sat saturnine at the table, willfully unreachable. No amount of spanking or punishment was going to sway me." (Tran 58). 

In my story, I think that Phuc benefits from his father's insistence that they need to embrace being Vietnamese, but it isn't until later in life. Unfortunately, it takes his father a lot longer to appreciate that Phuc is more capable of trying to fit in and the benefits that come from being the same as everyone else. Despite their immigration being beyond their control, Phuc acknowledges that they are in America now and should act like it. There are benefits to both sides, but the main thing that seems to come across is that they need each other---Phuc needs to hold on to his heritage, and his father needs to assimilate. 

In my book “ Out of Nowhere” by Maria Padian, Tom is a senior in high school and captain of the soccer team. His season is changed when Somali immigrants join the team and they are very skilled and better than pretty much everyone else on the team. One of these players is named Saeed, who Tom quickly befriends and even helps him fill out the permission slip so that he's allowed to play. With the help of the new teammates the soccer team starts winning games however Tom makes a big mistake, he and his troublemaker friend Donnie decide to paint their rival highschools special rock. They get caught in the act and everyone is mad at Tom, his parents, his coach, his principal, everyone. Tom gets sentenced to 100 hours of community service and has to repaint the rock back to how it was. At school the immigrants have a hard time finding classes and navigating the school because they barely know English. The confusion leads to other kids making fun of and picking on them which creates a hostile environment in the school. What doesn't help is the rule that the school puts in that students are only allowed to speak English in classrooms which makes it very difficult for the immigrants to communicate.

To answer the question: How can family  influence the process of immigrating? On a deeper level, explain how family plays a part in the decision to immigrate? In my book Saeed's sister does not like Tom, something that shocks him because it seems that everyone likes him, however Samira doesn't like Tom because of his girlfriend who was part of the reason why the English only rule was implemented, "But apparently your girlfriend is part of a group of white girls who told a teacher that Somali girls were gossiping about them and mocking them to their faces in the classroom, in Somali."(Padian 121). In this situation a family member of Saeed, one of Tom's friends doesn't like Tom which doesn't help Tom's friendship and relationship with Saeed. Samira has been in America for over a year and had she known about how people would treat immigrants in the country she may have told Saeed to not come to America or move to a separate part of the country.

Do you think that family has influenced people immigrating by making them separate and split families apart just to escape a bad country?

In my book Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue the Jonga family is an immigrant family from Cameroon that moves to New York. Jende Jonga, who is one of the parents, is employed by a rich investment banker, Clark Edwards, as a chauffeur or daily driver. He drives around Clark and his family and learns that just because they are rich they don’t seem to be too happy. For a short time, Jendes' wife, Neni, was employed by the Edwards as a maid or caretaker in their summer home. The Jongas are both treated very well by the Edwards family. They talk about each other's families a lot as well with Jende sharing his experience before coming to New York, “I know it is funny, sir. But I had to get my wife. By two years after I came to New York, I had saved good money to pay the bride-price and bring her and my son over here.” (Mbue 43-44) He tells the story or reasoning behind why he needed to get to America and buy his wife and prove that he is a successful man to his wifes father. He loved her so much that he left her for two years just to get enough money to bring her and his son over so they could also have a successful future.