3. Group C--lmarks26 (Replacement D)

In my book How Dare The Sun Rise by Sandra Uwiringiyimana, it starts suddenly and fast with an attack on a camp in their home country. This ended with many people in Sandra’s family being severely injured or killed. most spoken about a relative who was taken in the attack was Deborah, she was the younger sibling of Sandra, whose life was taken in the shootings at her camp. Her mother was also wounded but was able to live, so from then on they moved around, they ended up living in three different places in three different countries in Africa, before the family was interviewed for immigrant placement, they were placed and Rochester New York, surrounded by unfamiliar people and systems the family struggled, many times Sandra had to act as her parents to call people for them, like calling credit card companies, etc, Sandra said she felts it was odd that she was now the one teaching her parents how things worked instead of the other way around, and as this happened Sandra still struggled with herself, trying to fit into this new environment and understand how things work, how people dress, pastimes people do. It was all a huge culture shock to Sandra, and she struggled, between fitting in and trying to teach her mother and father how things worked. By the end of the book her parents are coming to more of an understanding with each other, Sandra's parents wanting her to keep her beliefs and ideals, while Sandra wants to be able to fit in and talk to people around her and be like all of her friends. Sandra becomes a bridesmaid in her sister Adele's wedding. Sandra also gets to meet President Obama and the first lady. her work with a group named Refugepoint helps her to get to this point with her activism and involvement in helping and telling the story of refugees around the world.

how difficult is it for an immigrant to become their own person? Are there times where they aren’t defined by their culture or other stereotypes?

It can be pretty hard for an immigrant to become their own person, between different forms of discrimination or stereotypes, there's many times when even a family member is trying to keep someone tied to their culture, not letting them become their own person and trying to keep them how they want them, like Sandra, who wants to be her own person badly, but her mother is trying to keep her from doing anything she doesn't approve of, it eventually gets to a point where sandra says "I don't think its fair for you to expect me to live with these cultural expectations, I'm not trying to spite you.but we live in America now."( Uwiringiyimana 269), this shows us Sandra not fighting, but telling her mother, that she wants to be able to live how she wants, outside the cultural expectations and stereotypes of her family and the people around her.

In my book Out Of Nowhere by Maria Padian, Tom is a senior in high school while also being captain of the soccer team. During the season there is a bunch of Somalian kids who join the team after immigrating and they are better then almost all of the kids.The best one is named Saeed, Tom and Saeed become good friends and they even got so close that Tom filled out Saeed's doctor things with his so Saeed can play on the team and since he is an immigrant he doesn't have a doctor or a dentist or any of the things to be able to play. Tom and his trouble making friend Donnie went and painted rival schools Maqoit's special rock.They get caught and then Tom gets sentenced to 100 community service hours and him and Donnie have to paint the rock to how it was before. The immigrants have a hard time finding there classes and navigating the school. The principal makes a dumb rule and makes its so the immigrants have to speak American and not just there language which makes it even harder for the immigrants to understand there classes and talk to people to get help. Tom's life starts going pretty well he breaks up with his girlfriend and starts dating Myla, Maquoit questions Saeed's eligiblity to play and he is then stopped from playing and then when a big storm strikes Saeed goes missing and his friend Donnie gets into a accident and is very hurt. At the hospital Tom hugs Saeed's sister and then Tom's ex girlfriend gets upset and take a picture and uploads it. The whole Somalian community gets upset at Saeed's sister's. Saeed was in Portland at a soccer game the night of the storm and just couldn't find a ride home. Tom tells Saeed about what happened between him and his sister but Saeed seems upset by it. Tom just doesn't understand why it's such a bad thing but that's just how it is in the Somali community. Not much longer after that Saeed's family just left. Tom is very upset about loosing his friend but finds out that they moved to Minneapolis to get away from the bad stuff and threats about Samira hugging Tom. 

 how difficult is it for an immigrant to become their own person? Are there times where they aren’t defined by their culture or other stereotypes? It is very difficult for immigrants to become there own person because they have to do more to be accepted. They are definitely defined by there culture because since they are a immigrant other people treat them as less then. A time when this happens is when " that life is hard, and if you don't have money you work all the time. to pay the bills and feed your children. but if you have enough money, you can stop work and do the fun things" it shows how immigrants come into our country and immediately are a few steps behind money wise and they cannot enjoy them being freed from there rough life back where there from

In my book Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok Kimbery Chang has overcome a lot of challenges since moving from Hong Kong to the United states. The challenges Kim has faced include language barriers, poverty and having to work in a sweatshop, and cultural barriers. These challenges have made it difficult for her to become her own person. Kim has an especially difficult time in asserting her individuality because of her cultural expectations and her family expectations. During the book Kim faces the stereotype of being the “foreign girl” during school and she is seen as an outsider. Kim is not defined by her stereotype during her academic achievements, “I didn’t have the luxury of wanting something for myself. I had to want what my mother wanted for me, because it was the only way she could see me get out of the sweatshop, the only way she could see me get out of this life.” ( kwok 89) This quote shows that Kim faced a lot of pressure from her mom because of the expectations she had set for her. Kim's mom puts a lot of pressure on Kim and to become her own person she has to overcome her moms expectations to become her own person.

In my book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao beli (the mom of Oscar and Lola) left Santo Domingo to go live in New york because La inca (a distant relative that adopted her) wanted her to be safe. My book goes back to Oscar he was still an outcast and yunior (baiscally the main narrator of my story) offered to move in with him to impress Oscars sister. Yunior befriended Oscar. Oscar falls in love with a girl who becomes his gf but she cheated on him and he tried to kill himself but he lived and he started a writing project. My book moves on back to Lola, her grandma tells her that she has to move back with  her mom and she quit her classes and everything and she even broke up with Max. She felt like utter crap and she wasn't herself. She fooled around with one of her classmates' dad who was after her which made the guy happy till she asked for a lot of money. She had gotten the money and stashed it. She soon found out that her ex Max had died which was heartbreaking for her since she hadn't seen him since the break up. My book moves on to talk about Oscars grandfather Abelard who was a wellr respected surgeon who ran a clinic with his wife who he had 2 daughters with. He was worried for his eldest daughter since the dictator Trujillo at the time was known for doing awful things to women. Abelard was then arrested for an alleged joke that was against Trujillo. Abelards wife at the time was pregnant with their third child Beli and after she gave birth she ended her own life and then her two oldest daughters died mystiriously which meant beli was given to disstant relitives who sold her into slavery. But then la inca found her and adopted her. My book goes back to oscar who was moving back home after graduating collage and he started working at his old highschool. During summer he travled to Santo Dominigo which was where he met a woman named Ybon and he feel in love with her even tho she had a boyfriend who was a cop, this made Ybons boyfriend jealous. Ybons boyfriend witnessed Oscar kissing Ybon and he sent his henchmen after Oscar to bring Oscar to a cane field and beat him. after that we find out that Yunior gets with Lola. Oscar survived this and returned to New Jersey but he couldnt get his mind off of Ybon so he returned to Santo Dominigo to see Ybon and she begged him to leave but he stayed and Ybons boyfriend found out and sent his henchmen again to kidnap and execute Oscar and Oscar didnt make it. Beli (Oscars mom) died after Oscars funaral and Lola broke up with Yunior and moved to Miami and had a kid with a different man but then she moved back to new jersey.

how difficult is it for an immigrant to become their own person? Are there times where they aren’t defined by their culture or other stereotypes? Oscar has to deal with his family putting their beliefs onto him. He also has to deal with his weight which makes it hard for him to find himself and become his own person. A good example of this is when he tried very hard to pursue someone he loves and who also loves him back but in the end he fails by getting killed by the girls boyfriend “he chased her. Sat in front of her house, called her on her beeper,went to  the World Famous Riverside, where she worked, walked to the supermarket whenever he saw her truck pull out, just incase she was on her way there.”(317 Diaz)