3. Group I--acote26

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. After excelling in her new private school, and working very hard to get good grades because she thought it was the only way to get herself and her mother out of poverty, she secures herself a scholarship to Yale and accepts it. Before accepting this scholarship from Yale, she also starts a relationship with her friend from the factory named Matt, and gets pregnant, and has the baby. After accepting this offer from Yale, she decides to focus on herself and her education instead of further pursuing her relations with Matt, raising her child with her mother, and becoming a doctor.

In Girl in Translation, she had to take many steps to end up being very successful in the end. She immigrated from a different country, learned the new morals and ways of life, and excelled in school to be able to say she is where she is now. In the end, it works out great for her, she ends up getting a scholarship to Yale, and becomes a doctor, but had to make many sacrifices along the way. She had to work twice as hard, coming from a completely different place, learning multiple new things at once. Although she did have to accustom to the new morals, she ended up still being very successful, despite all the obstacles in her way. One quote that shows this is "This is not some abstract idea in your head. This is my life" ( Kwok 179 ) 

In my book "Love In English" by Maria E Andrew, my characters do connect through the struggles they face and Ana used her best judgement to follow through actions to better herself in the end. Ana my main character moves to America from Balkans. She meets friends at school but it's hard because she is struggling to use and learn English so fast. Ana had a great relationship with Harrison, but by the end of my book, she decided it would be best if they went their separate ways. "I really liked you." says Harrison"(283 Andrew) After Ana broke it off with Harrison he then got in a fight with another guy and got really upset. Sometimes our characters and immigrants have to take hard and unusual risks to put themselves first.

In my book, The Only Road, by Alexandra Diaz, relates to the question, “What steps did your character take to improve their circumstances?”. This relates to the question because 12 year old Jaime and his 15 year old cousin left their Guatemalan village after a gang named the “Alphas” murdered his cousin and best friend all in one. They were caught in the face of death if they had stayed so they journeyed to the U.S to live with Jaime’s brother. They took several steps to improve his circumstances as having to move to another country for his and his family’s safety. Eventually, they reach the U.S., but the journey leaves them helpless again. Yet he felt as though he couldn’t take another step forward for once, and wanted to go back home, “I think we should go back”, “No. Back home. To Guatemala.” (Diaz 225). This quote shows that even though he spent all this time taking so many steps forward to leave Guatemala, he still wanted to throw it all away and go back because of new circumstances he’d never thought he’d face.

In my book, Private Label by Kelly Yang, it answers the question, "What steps did your character take to improve their circumstances? How did that work out in the end?" Serene and Lian are both the only Asian students at there school. Serene is pretty and popular, while Lian is an outcast and labeled a nobody. Although Lian and Serene are both Asian, Lian faces bullying in person whereas Serene is bully online. Although it's not exactly stated in my chosen quote, the quote explores the context in the scene in which Lians comedy act gets his peers to finally see the real him. "It fills me with joy that my classmates finally see me, even more than winning." (Yang 401) This shows how all Lian had to do was really put himself out there, be himself, and be confident, and not give into a nerdy shy Asian stereotype.