1. Group I---edubois26

I'm curious what you mean when you say that Ana "discovers herself"---can you elaborate? Perhaps more background information would help; how old is she, where in the US did she move, why did she move, etc. You didn't really explain what happens to her in your story so far. 

In my story, Sigh, Gone, Phuc Tran talks about how he is NOT in a diverse place and how it was extremely difficult to find ways to fit in. 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. 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. He then reflects, "Do we want words to be powerful or powerless? We can't have it both ways. If we want them to be powerful, we have to act and speak accordingly, handling our words with fastidious faith that they can do immeasurable good or irreparable harm. But if we want to say whatever we want...then we render words powerless, ineffectual, and meaningless..." (Tran 55-56).

For him, the language being used was a super important part of assimilating, but it was extremely difficult. Scenarios like this made it so he never knew how much more he should study English. It seemed like the more he learned about it, the more he used it wrong. This was also true with his father who insisted he learned Vietnamese as well. 

Because of this, I think assimilating is definitely more difficult if you're in an area where people are unfamiliar with immigrants. There's going to be less support and awareness, and ultimately things like language barriers and other difficulties will be harder to move past. 

In my book, The Only Road, by Alexandra Diaz, relates to the question, “When thinking about your book, when your character is assimilating to a different culture, why might it be easy or difficult for other people in the book to accept them?” This book relates to the question because the first part of the novel talks about how a boy named Jamie is forced to leave the country and go live with his brother for safety reasons because of the situation he was in. Jamie is forced to assimilate in another country, to fit in and adapt to his new life style. It might be difficult for not only the community in a different country but also his brother to accept the fact that he’s being forced to live with him. Just because they are family, doesn’t mean his brother would want him to show up with no apparent warning  or purpose. Not only that, but Jamie didn’t know barely any english yet Tomas did. It would be hard for people to understand him along his journey and accept him when he gets there, “Tomas was lucky, everyone said. Because of Tomas’s love for Hollywood movies, he’d learned English perfectly, which had allowed him to move there legally through a sponsorship the rancher offered.” (Diaz 23). This quote shows how it might be difficult for other people to accept him because of the way he talks, looks, how he got to this country, and why he was forced to be there. 

In my book, Private Label, by Kelly Yang, it relates to the question, "When thinking about your book, when your character is assimilating to a different culture, why might it be easy or difficult for other people in the book to accept them?". Private Label answers the question by having our two main characters be immigrants but with very different treatment. One is rich and popular, and the other is medium class and unknown. It was hard for the kids at school to accept that just because Lian, the unknown kid, is, well, unknown, it doesn't mean he's any different than the other kids. "I tell myself that's why they don't like me, because of my sad, gate-less neighborhood. Because the other reason is too hard to swallow. Which is that I'm different. And even though Serene is too, she's assimilated and I haven't." (Yang 26). This quote shows how because he's not accepted, he doesn't want to believe it's simply because of his race, but maybe because of his living situation. 

In my book Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok when Kim first immigrated to America it was hard for her to fit in and hard for people to accept her because of the language barrier because people could not understand her and she couldn't understand other people. Another reason why it was hard for her to fit in was because of her race and how she didn't look like other kids, “My English mistakes clearly annoyed him, although I wasn't sure why.”(Kwok 27) It was hard for kim to fit in because people got annoyed that she didn't know basic english skills like everyone else.