3. Group C--lvalentin26

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.

Sandra as a character faces a barrier to her goals, but this barrier is simply her parents, they want her to keep traditional and stick to the beliefs and ideals of the family, however Sandra wants to be able to go out and fit in and learn and explore this new life she has now "I just want to live my life"(Uwiringiyimana 268). But eventually her and her mother come to an understanding and begin to acknowledge each others wants, they agree that Sandra will hold the ideals and beliefs still, but she'll be able to go see and the world and live her life how she wants to, helping people and seeing the world as she wished. 

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. Kim has also faced discrimination in school and everyday life. By the end of my book kim has graduated highschool and got a scholarship to attend yale which shows she has overcome a lot of barriers in her life. Kim overcomes these barriers by her perseverance and strong desire to have a better life for her and her mother. Her mentor, Mr. Choi played a big role in encouraging her and helping her with academics and providing guidance. Kims grit and self reliance contributed to her eventual success, “ I didn't know enough to be afraid but I did know that I helped earn our money and I wasn't going to give it up so easily.” (Kwok 221-222) This shows that even at the young age of 16 she was still struggling to overcome barriers in her everyday life. This quote shows her self determination and her grit and how she was not going to give up so easily on a tiny little problem in her life when she has faced much bigger issues. 

I think it's interesting how our characters seem to deal with similar struggles, like language, poverty, and cultural barriers; however, my character doesn't have to work in a sweatshop, or seemingly, at all. 

In reading the same book, I disagree with how you said Mr. Choi (Uncle Bob) was encouraging. I could see how he could be seen as inspiring to her as a successful businessman, but his involvement in her success was very limited. Eventually It seemed as if Kim and Ma were trying to escape from them rather than celebrate their success together as a family. 

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.

What barriers does your character face inhibiting their ability to pursue a long term goal or hope they have? Does your character overcome this? If so, how? If not, what would help them overcome this? in my third part of my book Oscar had to make a huge decision on if he should go see the girl he feel in love with and possibly get beaten up again by the girls boyfriends henchmen, or stay in New Jersey everyone was trying to get him to stay but he decided to go back to Santo Dominigo to see her, which ended up in him getting beaten to death by the henchmen "once in the parking lot by the Riverside he tried again to kiss her and she turned away with her head, not her body. please don't he'll kill us" (320 Diaz).he somewhat overcame his goal since when he first visited her he kissed her which was his first kiss but in the end he didn't fully overcome it since he never got to kiss her again even tho he was trying his best to pursue her.