If you missed class when Discussion #1 was taking place or were not prepared to respond to your lead on time, you need to respond to the following question. Remember that leads are only responsible for responding to you within the timeframe that was initially assigned. Check in with your teacher when you've made your initial post, so they can respond. Leads, remember that you must also still complete a Lead Proposal in addition to replying here, if you were not prepared on time. Please then mark this as complete on Google Classroom when you're finished all the steps that go into the Post Mortem instructions:
- A brief summary of your selected Ted Talk (that was not the one used in this post)
- One quote and citation from one of the Ted Talks (that was not used in this post)
- A summary of your book
- One quote and citation from your book
- A clear answer to the question with a connection to your information
*You can complete these in any order that creates a well-written response*
In Maeve Higgins’ Ted Talk called “Why a ‘Good Immigrant’ is a Bad Narrative,” she discusses how obtaining a visa into the U.S. can be divided based on who is perceived as exceptional. In her discussion, this is a dangerous system to get into because it divides how people look at immigrants. In her speech she makes the case that all immigrants are valuable, regardless of what they accomplish prior to immigrating. She says, “Why should immigrants have to prove themselves extraordinary to deserve a place at the table, to deserve a fighting chance? Constantly having to prove yourself worthy of basic human dignity is exhausting, and it's unfair. People should not be considered valuable just because they do something of value to us, like pick our fruit or perform our life-saving surgery or win our soccer game. People are valuable because they are people.” (Higgins).
In Phuc Tran’s memoir, Sigh, Gone, he also speaks about some of the difficulties of migration from a systemic sense. While he and his family received much support from the sponsors upon moving to the United States, there are some things that no amount of explanation can prepare them for. In one situation, he describes the struggle they had with not being able to look up words his father needed for basic things, like paying bills, “A secondhand scarlet dictionary lay on the table next to him, thudding open as he consulted it for vocabulary that he didn’t understand in the rustling white of bills and checks. Amount Due. Gross Pay. Net Pay. (Helpful hint for future English learners: you can’t just look up the definitions of net and pay and put them together.)” (Tran 11).
Both of these scenarios bring to light how, despite best intentions, Americans are struggling to provide the right things for the tasks immigrants have to face at times. Based on this, your novel, and one additional TedTalk, discuss: what are some things that Americans can do better to help ease immigrants into our culture?
