2. Group A - igreenwood25

In my book Refugee by Alan Gratz it focuses on 3 different characters, Josef, Mahmoud, and Isabel who are all dealing with different scenarios. In my book Josef is living in Germany during the holocaust, he is a 12 year old boy and he's laying down getting ready for bed, and his house gets raided by the Nazis, Josef gets thrown on the floor next to his 6 year old sister, and his dad got arrested for practicing the Jewish law. My next character is Mahmoud. Throughout what I've read he is dealing with the Syrian government attacking their own civilians, it's gotten to the point where the civilians are fighting with other civilians and it's a constant battle. Mahmoud’s house is destroyed and after that they try to escape. My last and final character is Isabel, from what i've read she is dealing with a corrupt government after the fall of the Soviet Union. Her family and their neighbors are trying to escape by boat and go to the USA. They traded items that they couldn't bring on the boat for gasoline and they prepared to go to the USA. Josef in the second part of my book, they are escaping Germany, and then reunited with their father and they board the boat and ever since he came back to them they noticed their dad is very paranoid and he seems a lot different. My next character is Mahmoud and he's escaping from Syria, they walk to the Turkish border and they are hopping on a smugglers boat to escape and the raft is broken by rocks. My last character is Isabel, they are leaving Cuba and they face a lot of challenges trying to cross the Caribbean sea to get to Florida. Ivan, one of the kids on the boat, gets attacked by sharks and he dies on their way to florida.

My characters aren't experiencing a language barrier but they are dealing with problems with fleeing, “Something else-someone else- fell on top of him, pushing him deeper down into the water. He choked. Coughed. Swallowed more water. Bodies tumbled into the water above him, beside him, below him.”(Gratz 157) My character Mahmoud is trying to flee Syria and in the process they are all getting jammed into a motor powered raft and while they were riding they crashed into really sharp rocks and some of them died and they raft couldn't run anymore. For him this difficulty is the only thing that takes his focus and he isn't in a place to experience a language barrier.

Oh wow! the characters in my book didn't experience problems with fleeing. They're Somali and they have nobody to run from.

In my book Watched by Marina Budhos. Naeem is the main character and as of right now he is getting in trouble in and out of school. He has a friend who is a bad influence on him, but Naeem is just trying to live life because his parents are strict. His parents only care about his academics and he can’t do anything fun with friends because he is always forced to do homework. His parents own a run down convenience store in Queens, New York. No one ever goes there may be one person. Naeem got in trouble with the NYPD because he was caught for shoplifting. NYPD told him his charges will be discharged if he does this deal with the cops. Naeem deals with language difficulty because he was asked to watch his Muslim community and report back to them. “There are things you can do with this. It’s a job. Could even be a career”(Budhos 53). Naeem is hesitant at first but gives in because he doesn't want to go to jail. I feel like this could be a language difficulty because Naeem speaks a different language and is from a different country. The cops want him to rat on his own religion. Because the cops think they are “bad”. 

In a Ted Talk presented by Kyle Quinn “What marrying an immigrant taught me about cultural bias”, Quinn talks about his experiences at a BMV, where a customer service representative treats Quinn and his wife unfairly since his wife is an immigrant, and how quickly the workers attitude changed when Quinn informed them that he was in fact, from America. “Her tone changed entirely when she found out I was American” (Quinn) 

In Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian, We see a young Muslim immigrant named Saeed doing well in soccer in Anniston, Maine. Although the success he is making for himself on the soccer team. Muslims are still frowned upon in the community, this is so blown out of proportion, that the mayor even writes a letter about how they can’t support the immigrants.

Our main protagonist is Tom, Tom is white and grew up in Anniston, Maine. Tom is put into a transformative journey of cultural awareness. Where he straddles on the line of his uncle’s bigot racism against the Muslims in Anniston, and his aunt’s progressive values and wanting to help immigrants settle in their community.  "Can I ask you something? What's wrong with making the classroom an English-only zone?'' She put her can down again. Now she looked serious. “Do you not understand how this shuts them down? Especially when they speak our language? For them, not knowing English is like being gagged and blindfolded at the same time.” (Padian 122) 

Coincidentally, I am also experiencing Language barriers in my book, we see how this occurs when Tom is hesitant about filling out Saeed's forms for eligibility for soccer, Tom informs his coach "But doesn't guidance have Translators for that?" (Padian 16). This shows how Tom is dreading to work through a language barrier with an immigrant in order to play on the soccer team.