2. Group A--cmoody26

Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian, the story follows Tom Bouchard, a popular high school soccer player, and his cousin Franny Powers, who is more independent and outspoken. Tom goes to an upscale prep school in Maine, where he navigates his life as a teenager and tries to fit in too much. We also meet Abdi, a Somali refugee who recently moved to the area. He struggles to fit in at the school due to language barriers and racism. Some students are nice to him, but others, like Hank, treat him bad. There was a soccer game with Toms team against Ishmaels team and he is targeted by Toms team because of his background. Tom starts to get to know Abdi, and stats to understand about the struggles he is going through. 

Abdi reflects on the struggles of being in a foreign country without being with there family and wanting to follow there religion and traditions. ¨Refugees a lot of times get even stricter about religion when they leave home" (Padian 196), this quote talks about refugees wanting to follow there religion.

Girl In Translation By Jean Kwok is about a young Chinese girl immigrating to the U.S from Hong Kong, trying to accustom to the new morals and ways of life. Kimberly and her mother live in a very run down, bad apartment in the projects of New York, a place that was basically abandoned. Kimberly has to attend public school, where she has some challenges in the beginning, but eventually makes a good friend named Annette. Annette shows her the ways of life in the U.S and eventually Kimberly gets the hang of school there, and gets very high math tests scores, and was able to be a candidate to go to a private school. On top of school, Kimberly has to go to the factory where her mother was employed after school to work very long hours, sometimes being there all night with her mother.

Although I don't think they necessarily "failed" to immigrate to another country, because they do successfully arrive in New York, how they live when they do arrive is not considered the best. The apartment they are living in is in the projects of New York, with no heat and infested to rats and mice. Even though, they didn't technically fail, they are experiencing failure in the United States. They have to work in a factory, doing physical labor, when back home in Hong Kong, Kimberly's mother was a music teacher. Both Kimberly and her mother both reminisce about their life in Hong Kong and wish they could go back. Life when they came to the United States went completely downhill for them both. One quote that shows that is "I closed my eyes, listening and remembering how it had been when we had our own piano in our apartment, how Ma's delicate fingers had moved so gracefully over the keyboard." ( Kwok 178 ) One quote that shows and proves the fact that when they came to the United States, they somewhat experienced failure is "I looked at Ma. Could this be a way to get out of the clothing factory? She shook her head. "Remember how cold it gets at home, ah-Kim?" I nodded. In our unheated apartment, we would never be able to string beads with a needle and thread." ( Kwok 179 )

In my book Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue the main characters Jende and Neni Jonga face issues trying to stay in America. They are both immigrants from Cameroon and they came to the United States, Jende on a work visa and Neni on a school visa. Since they both were in the U.S on a visa, they technically aren't citizens. So they applied for asylum but they were denied. “The asylum application was not approved, the lawyer told him,” (Mbue 56). Now they are supposed to be deported back to Cameroon.